Forums / Discussion / General

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/04/10/video-shows-man-forcibly-removed-united-flight-chicago-louisville/100274374/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/nation-now/2017/04/10/man-forcibly-removed-united-flight/100276054/

So it seems that, due to overbooking a flight (which is the airlines fault) they needed to get four seats open to seat four of their own employees on this certain flight. They tried to to coax people into giving up their seats with $400 and a hotel stay, and telling the passengers they would not take off until someone took the offer. They raised to $800 before then using a computer to randomly decide who gets the boot.

The man that gets forced off claimed to be a Doctor who needed to get to his patients on monday and couldn't give up his seat. Security then proceeded to drag the man out of his seat by force and drag him off the plane. Passengers report that they smashed the mans face into a armrest and he was bleeding from the face afterward. In the video, everyone is shocked and screaming at the officers over the whole ordeal.

I've seen on Twitter people swearing off United or saying they are glad they already have. Not sure if this is going to blow up and further than that, although it is pretty disgusting the way the airline treated their own paying customer just because they fucked up the booking. Thoughts?

Edit:
We may have a new Event entry at this rate, it's blowing up on Twitter.


Fun fact, I didn't realize that dude was the guy who made the Charlie the Unicorn vids until I already uploaded the pic to Imgur. I just thought the tweet was funny and grabbed it.

I don't know too much about law but I'm pretty sure the passenger in question could start a massive lawsuit over this and win. That's just awful. They basically fucked him over to cover their own mistake and beat him up in the process because clearly they hadn't done enough.

I hope this one blows up. Everyone has been fucked by airlines at one point or another, so there's plenty with a cause in here.

Company will mitigate their own liability by either blaming the man and claiming he was super violent or blaming the officers and firing them, but changing nothing about how they train people to handle situations like this, nor their boarding policies.

I've heard he was already calling his lawyer when security arrived, so a lawsuit is likely.

@Black Graphic T There are at least two videos clearly showing the man doing nothing violent before security just grabs him and drags him off, there is no way they can claim the man was violent.

Edit: The amount of Pepsi memes on Twitter regarding this is actually hilarious

For some reason, the Chicago Police Department released a statement about the incident.
They weren't even involved with said incident.

As someone who lives in the Chicago area, this story is blowing up on social and local media. They were talking about it on the radio station I listen to while I was driving to school today, and they came to the conclusion that it was the fault of the airport authority for handling the situation the way they did. To me, it's not really a big surprise since Chicago O'hare doesn't really have a good reputation.

What do you guys think?

The only problem is if the passenger was apprehended in a way that was too violent.

On every ticket, there is a statement saying you could be declined services at any time as long as you're given money back.

I should also note that airlines do this, because overbooking is how prices for tickets are kept low. If they don't, ticket prices go up.

I should also note that they offered $800 and a hotel stay to anyone who gave up their seat before they randomly decided to choose 4 people to remove from the plane.

So the people who didn't have patients they had to see didn't take $800 to delay their flight could have prevented this.

This happens all of the time. The only reason this blew up is because the doctor was screaming like a banshee and because he got injured or people wouldn't take the reimbursement and money and give up their seat.

Again, if this doesn't happen, ticket prices will go up.