They already did business when they sold him a ticket to board a plane at a specific time. What they're doing is trying to renege on that at the last minute and not to mention the brutal way they went about it, and the world's disgust tells me that overbooking should be illegal period
I totally agree that the way it was done was unnecessary, but he did refuse to move, so he bears at least some responsibility for what happened to him. Just because he wants to get somewhere, that doesn't obligate anyone to actually take him, so long as they give him his money back, and probably more than he paid. I'm not arguing that United went about it the right way, certainly they didn't, but he still has no right to use someone else's facilities without their permission.
Any rational person with dignity would've refused as well. He had patients to see to and could not take a later flight. He was assaulted for this, that's what happened, and since that was enabled by the airline the CEO should be charged with that. The victim is suing, but buying your way out of anything is not justice. This is criminal greed
UA has learned nothing from this. Their new policy is to not overbook later than an hour before takeoff...That's not good enough. They shouldn't be allowed to overbook period and i can't think more of an area of the transportation industry where the government needs to step in and put a stop to it. Selling more tickets than you have seats is outrageous and yet this happens over 40,000 times a year. This doesn't happen at sporting events or anything else. Never a clearer example of interstate commerce either
Not that billionaires like Trump would have the first idea of the abuse this man and the witnesses suffered. When's the last time he flew in coach and got bumped at the last second i wonder
The "cops" were employed by the airline and thus the airline is the only one that has to settle with the man.
:2usflag:
It costs money to fly a plane, they have to do it with every seat filled or it isn't financially viable. Now I agree that they shouldn't overbook, they should just sell all of the seats and people should show up. I wouldn't have a problem if they simply refused to refund money on a flight less than a week away. You should have been there. But so long as that isn't the case, they will overbook or they will go out of business and none of these people will be going anywhere via air.
Are they employees of the airline or the airport? I'm not a lawyer like T.D., but I would think that makes a difference.
If they had a policy you can't cancel and get a refund after a certain time, which is very common in everything from sports venues to hotels and restaurant reservations, that would avoid the complete injustice of getting screwed and not offered another seat until *3 days later* and then hospitalized
Except UA already had this late cancellation policy. What they do is when someone isn't early for a flight, they try to resell the ticket to someone on the waiting list...then the original ticket holder shows up and then what?? Or they book more flights than there are seats - This should definitely not be legal. Or some employees want the seat, they screw the customer instead and they've done nothing to stop this except change the timeline to screw the customer right before he's boarded so that he won't have to be bloodied (how generous of them)
So there's nothing to be done except legislation and lawsuits and it appears that will be happening
Airport rent-a-cops wearing blue jeans. Not exactly Chicago PD.
:2usflag:
But still not employees of UA, just the airport, right?
They can't book more flights, there are only so many physical planes. They can't fly without the plane being full, they'd go out of business. So while what happened to him was bad and they deserve to be penalized for it, what else can they do? How else can they fill 100% of the seats when people simply don't show up for flights? Give us a workable solution.
They can't book more flights, there are only so many physical planes. They can't fly without the plane being full, they'd go out of business. So while what happened to him was bad and they deserve to be penalized for it, what else can they do? How else can they fill 100% of the seats when people simply don't show up for flights? Give us a workable solution.
How does a sports stadium do so? I see half empty stadiums of bought tickets from no shows on a regular basis. You don't get it i guess - when someone buys a nonrefundable ticket, it doesn't matter whether they show up or not! They still get the $!
What UA routinely does is so beyond that though. They literally take a 180 seat plane and sell 200 *nonrefundable* tickets under the *assumption* that 20 will not show up and then when 185 show up they kick 5 off the plane with no warning. This happens to 46,000 every year in this country and often they're told "Come back Monday" and there goes 3 days of their vacation. That's freaking criminal greed and no other industry gets away with ****ting on their customers like this
The atrocity that happened to this man is shedding light on many outrages that UA does on a regular basis, leading to legislation being filed and $1 billion lost revenue already on future sales
My solution is simply to sell no more tickets than they have seats, or the government can take it over. Those are the options i would give them now
Sports stadiums don't require vast amounts of jet fuel to operate. The fact is that most of the time, they overbook and don't have a problem. You have to remember that more than 650 million people fly every year in the United States alone. 46k is nothing. That's not criminal greed, that's how the system works. If you don't like it, take a train.
I'm quite sure you'd be pissed if you're one of the 46k and no, we'll ban it instead
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