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OT: Airline passenger booted - again - rant

J

JML755

Well-known Member
What is it with people nowadays that any little thing happens, someone records it on a cellphone, posts it online, it goes viral and they are made out to be poor downtrodden victims. The latest "bump" occurred when a family wanted to let their infant ride in a seat left unoccupied by an older child who took an earlier flight. The infant was not supposed to get a seat. The airlines assigned the empty seat to a passenger who was flying "standby". Now, Delta has been forced to apologize. All it did was enforce the rules.

What a crock. FAA regulations say a seat must be occupied by the person holding a ticket for it. The infant had no ticket!

It seems that everyone today just wants to make up their own rules and then scream. In the earlier incident with the doctor, 3 of the 4 people "bumped" followed the rules. If anything, they should have tazed him for obstructing the officer. If he disagreed with the request, take it up with the airline AFTER he's off the plane. The cop was doing his job. Now the guy got a settlement ($$$)

Anyway, I guess I'm just getting to be a cranky old man. :x Rant over.
 
The airlines did not touch the passenger, it was the federal marshals. He was breaking a federal law and his azz should be in the pen not getting rich!
 
Anyway, I guess I'm just getting to be a cranky old man. :x Rant over.[/quote]


There, there, old feller, I'm sure your Farmall M will start and run just fine.
LA in WI
 

It is time for the Federal gov't, who made all of these rules for the airlines to follow, to step up and tell people loud and clear that until the rules get changed that the airlines and their employees are required by law to enforce them. We are headed for anarchy.
 
Just because you don't like or agree with a rule doesn't make it ok to violate.

I 100% agree the airline handled it improperly, though. They took it to far. Tell security and let them take care of it. Planes get oversold, it's a necessary evil. There should be certain seats that are not in the lottery for removal though, including children/infants.

The father could have been rebooked and given up his seat so that the woman and infant could go, and he could have flown with his son who he bought another ticket for. There were numerous better ways for it to be handled on both sides.
 
I can envision lawyers having spotters posted in airports to get first chance at an unhappy traveler - at least paying some airport worker to call them. What a world we've descended to!
 
There is NO REASON EVER FOR A FLIGHT TO BE OVERBOOKED. With their computors they know exactly how many tickets are sold and they know how many seats the plane has. It is just stupidity to overbook. If they have to have seats for employes make sure they know how many there can be traviling and subtract that many seats from the number allowed to be sold and when every seat is booked STOP selling tickets on that flight. I hope that Dr wins and gets the airlines to use common sence.
 
(quoted from post at 13:47:49 05/05/17) There is NO REASON EVER FOR A FLIGHT TO BE OVERBOOKED. With their computors they know exactly how many tickets are sold and they know how many seats the plane has. It is just stupidity to overbook. If they have to have seats for employes make sure they know how many there can be traviling and subtract that many seats from the number allowed to be sold and when every seat is booked STOP selling tickets on that flight. I hope that Dr wins and gets the airlines to use common sence.
Click to expand...

They know how many seats there are, sure. However, there are many people that miss their flights. To accomidate people that miss their flight they rebook them on a later flight at little to no cost. To tell them they're SOL and have to buy another ticket with no refund would be rather harsh. However to sell 200/200 seats then have to refund 50 seats on a fairly regular basis would hurt the airline finanacially. I've been on near empty flights before because of no-shows.

They're not saying you never get a flight, they're just saying that sometimes, you may get bumped to a later flight. It's happened to me before and it's unfortunate, but they have always provided food vouchers, transportation vouchers, hotel vouchers.

All this information is detailed when you purchase your ticket. The fact that people don't bother to read the conditions is not hte fault of the airlines. THe guy said he bought the ticket and had a right to the seat, but that isn't the case because he clicked "i accept" without reading the rules.
 
The airlines should know how many seats are on each plane. That is not rocket science!! How long could I stay in business if I consistently sold more product then I have? On the United flight there was a later flight the the employees could have flown on.
 
First it was every business had cameras everywhere, now everyone has one. Growing up we were told to behave because the big guy above was watching. That didn't work then and it doesn't work now, now there are cameras.
 
I disagree to a point, the airlines have been treating passengers like cattle, over booking, kicking passengers off so they can fly their own people etc. It is about time someone started holding them accountable for their actions. If I was that doctor I would not have left either. I had a ticket, was on the plane and now your are kicking me off so your own people can fly. B.S. they should have a better action plan than kicking people of the flignt. Plus according to that police officers boss he had no business doing what he did. The officers supervisor said that should have been a United problem and not theirs. Unless the passenger is drunk, or poises a risk the police do not have the right and it is not their problem.
 
Funny you should mention that. Just read where the president (not the CEO) was made a sacrificial lamb and brought before congress over the incident.
The questioning senator threatened that if these incidents continue they would be forced to enact a 'passenger bill of rights'. Sort of spelling out
when and where airlines are allowed to break noses and knock out teeth. United settled out of court in "the Dr" incident with a not to be disclosed
figure. As for cell phones? Any smart passenger getting on a flight these days already has their phone in camera mode hoping to be able to cash in on
a segment sold to a news outlet. I'm reminded of the statement from 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' where the reporter tells the military speaker
'I've been in the news business xxx years and have never been able to catch a plane crash on camera but we know they still happen'. These days it's
very common to catch plane crashes on camera.
 
The real answer is to leave half the seats unbooked to take care of all the whiners. How much would they have to raise the price of tickets if they followed some of the suggestions on here. Plenty is the answer.

Too d%m many people are flying all over the place for no good reason and maybe should just stay home. I know. I have kids and they have friends and they always NEED to go some where.
 
Maybe "Transporter Technology" like on Star Trek will be the next great boom. Would finally put an end to overbooked seating. Then we'd only have to worry about lawsuits from folks who had parts of them sub-atomically scattered across the globe, and beyond! :shock:
 
To be honest I thought you were SOL if you missed your flight - unless it was the airline's fault for a delay in a connecting flight.
 
After this last incident I got to thinking--dangerous I know. Next time you buy a ticket really get one and read it. It doesn't say you request the airline to transport you at their convenience or when they have space or time etc. It is a contract for the airline to move you from one place to another and at a particular time. When weather was bad or a politician shut down an airport for his/her safety we all accepted it and it started a trend just like the communication executives getting fired for allegations. It's not right but you have to stand up. If you get bumped and do nothing you empower the behavior--THE AIRLINE BRECHED ITS CONTRACT.
 
When that former doctor/drug pusher got carried off the plane last month I took a shellacking for suggesting that MAYBE if he had acted like a mature human male and gotten up and walked off the plane to discuss it with the officials there would not have been a problem at all. I was always told that you had to mitigate your damages or you could not make a claim. In the court of public opinion apparently this does not matter.
 
Man you guys are getting to have old geezers thinking. LOL Everybody now wants everything changed to their needs, have their moment in the spot light due to Twitter and Facebook and its societies fault if it
don't work that way and maybe they can sue someone for it and get rich.I told a guy at work this week the reason people get so grumpy and miserable in their old age is because with so many years of seeing and
listening to all the crap on TV and in the news and in the work place there is finally no more room in your head for it and it just makes people a grouch. I turned 63 Tuesday and that's the way I'm getting to
be - just want to slap some sense into some people sometimes.
 
If I have 100 cows and I've sold 104 and you get around to getting your cows but they're all gone because I never had your 4 to start with would that be OK with you? Selling something
one doesn't have whether its cows or airplane seats over the number of seats on a plane is FRAUD pure plain and simple.
 
Bottom line, stories like this happen all
the time. News media wouldn't bother with
it. However now social media is control
of the news. Anyone with a smart phone is
now a news castor.

The court of public opinion on social
media has far reaching implications, not
all are good.
 
Those United employees were a flight crew that had to get to the destination in order to fly another plane out of that airport. In other words, if they did not get there, 200 other people would not get to fly to what ever destination they want to get to.
 
Ahh, a perfectly good reason to abuse a legally purchased ticket holder, raise his blood pressure and ire and have the sucker dragged off the plane. Thank you for the explanation. What you seem to forget; the airline screwed up with their personnel placement schedule and an ordinary citizen got phuqued, harassed and physically abused. Nice.
 
The Dr. had his license suspended for a time due to over prescribing drugs, if I read the news correctly.
 
(quoted from post at 15:31:45 05/05/17) Those United employees were a flight crew that had to get to the destination in order to fly another plane out of that airport. In other words, if they did not get there, 200 other people would not get to fly to what ever destination they want to get to.
Click to expand...

That is the airlines problem, not the passenger in question. So if that is indeed the case United were booting paying passengers FOR PROFIT!

Over booking is BS too. If someone doesn't show up on time tuff! Most often it's the passenger's fault because of poor time management. If people were out the cost of the ticket because THEY missed a flight bet next time they would be on time. In other words you are responsible to get to the plane on time, the airline is responsible to fly you to a designated destination. They have NO responsibility to you if you are a no show. If the airline refunds any part of a missed flight ticket then that's on the airline. Shouldn't be because if their poor planning! The solution is easy, leave 6-12 seats unsold in case they have to move a crew. Then if there is no need they can allow space available passengers to use those seats. And those should be the only tickets that are refundable. The airlines have a right to make a profit but not by selling something they don't have.

Rick
 
It seems like a pretty simple issue to me. If you buy a seat, you should get a seat. If you don't buy a seat, you don't
get a seat. I'm glad that United roasted themselves. I really couldn't care less if the guy is a doctor or not. He
bought the seat, and if he doesn't want to give the seat up, regardless of what you offer him to do so, go find someone
else who will. Here's the thing about this. The way I read it, they paid for the seat. It was originally for their
adult son, but then they decided to put a baby in it instead. They paid for the damn seat, Delta thought they were
going to sell the same seat twice.
 
(quoted from post at 14:20:39 05/05/17)

As for cell phones? Any smart passenger getting on a flight these days already has their phone in camera mode hoping to be able to cash in on a segment sold to a news outlet.
Click to expand...

You'd think that corporations would be aware of this reality and try not to allow stuff to become a national incident and embarrassment to themselves.
 
Seriously? You see that as an excuse? How critical was it that a United employee sat in THAT exact seat. I'm sure if they walked into the plane and said we need 4 seats, we'll give you $1000 to wait for the next flight, they would have found 4 willing people pretty quickly.
And with that said, FORCING people off of a flight that they paid to be on, because of your inability to plan things out isn't right. Let those 200 people sit in the airport for 6 hours, it would be a lot cheaper to have 200 people ------ off then what it's costing them now. And it might have taught them the importance of PLANNING. This BS wouldn't pass ANYWHERE else, period.
 
In some case, you are right. Take the cop shooting the man in the back, killing him. The cell phone video was a good thing that was posted on social media. Cops couldn't kick that one under the rug.

Then social media is also the source of real fake news. It been documented, people get on their computer and write a believable story that doesn't have an ounce of truth. Then the news media pick up on it and runs it. That is the far reaching negative side of social media news.

There are people who commit murder, then post on social media what they did.

A kid robs a gas station, posts it on social media for attention. He gets the cops attention.

Look at how many crazy wack-O's post on social media for attention, then does something stupid.

The airline was in the right to do what they did. However social media says they were wrong.

We are a nation of rules and laws, but social media thinks rules and laws don't apply anymore on airplanes.
 
(quoted from post at 04:43:41 05/06/17) We are a nation of rules and laws, but social media thinks rules and laws don't apply anymore on airplanes.
Click to expand...

OK the rule of law is that if you sell me something it has to be provided. And you are not allowed to sell goods or services then renege of the deal. That's rule of law. If you fail to provide those goods or service I can have you criminally charged (theft by deception/fraud) and or sue you. So them selling this guy a service, in this case and airplane ride to a destination, then telling him he has to get off because they need to move a crew to another place to fly a plane? It's an airline. They have airplanes. Some big, some small. They could have used a corporate jet to move that crew or even put them on another airline rather than to boot paying passengers who had ALREADY paid for that seat. As far as them printing something on a ticket about maybe being ask to leave a flight because of their incompetence in VERY FINE print, well I doubt that will stand up in court. Kinda like hosting an event and putting out signs saying "not responsible for accidents". Doesn't wash in court.

Think of it this way. How would you react if you bought a new tractor and the dealer told you after you paid that he was going to use it a few days on his own farm before he delivered it to you?

Rick
 
News report I read said they needed to be in position for a flight the next morning. There was a United flight later that evening they should have been able to take.
 

Very few people understand the complexity of the airline routing system. Actually very few are able to understand it because it is one of the most complex systems in the world.

Consider if AA has a Boeing 757 going from DFW to SFO, and 10 of the seats are sold to customers coming in on a flight connecting from MIA. The connecting flight is delayed for whatever reason. If AA is required to leave those seats empty the trip to SFO now becomes a money-losing deal for the airline. They MUST be able to fill those seats with customers who have bought seats but are on stand-by. The damned US government has a law the prevents AA from holding the flight to wait on the connecting flight so they have to leave - AND they have to have customers in those seats.

People who want to act like dirt bags need to take the damned bus, like they have all through history.

Also, it is rare for an airline to boot passengers to take care of deadheading crew. However if delaying that crew means that another flight doesn't go then they have to get the crew there, and they have a right to. Just because you buy a ticket does NOT mean you have a "right" to the seat! Read the ticket.
 
(quoted from post at 07:15:09 05/06/17)
Very few people understand the complexity of the airline routing system. Actually very few are able to understand it because it is one of the most complex systems in the world.

Consider if AA has a Boeing 757 going from DFW to SFO, and 10 of the seats are sold to customers coming in on a flight connecting from MIA. The connecting flight is delayed for whatever reason. If AA is required to leave those seats empty the trip to SFO now becomes a money-losing deal for the airline. They MUST be able to fill those seats with customers who have bought seats but are on stand-by. The damned US government has a law the prevents AA from holding the flight to wait on the connecting flight so they have to leave - AND they have to have customers in those seats.

People who want to act like dirt bags need to take the damned bus, like they have all through history.

Also, it is rare for an airline to boot passengers to take care of deadheading crew. However if delaying that crew means that another flight doesn't go then they have to get the crew there, and they have a right to. Just because you buy a ticket does NOT mean you have a "right" to the seat! Read the ticket.
Click to expand...

Understanding the issue is not a prerequisite to posting about what a poor job the airlines are doing. It is apparent that many posters here are either airline executives or lawyers.
 
I'd say because of the arrogance and stupidity of the airlines Congress will now pass some rules/laws that way over do what needs to be done but if airlines won't do the decent and right thing then they'll get what they deserve.Airlines have a whole lot less votes than the public at large so the airlines cannot win this fight.
 
Ah but read the ticket you purchased, by buying the ticket AND presenting the boarding pass at the gate YOU agree to follow the rules, and the rules are you have to follow the orders and directions of the
flight crew. If you buy a ticket AND get bumped the airline is still going to get you where you want to go, it just might be on another flight or even another carrier, AND the law provides things the airline
MUST do for you. If you're bumped and incur much of a delay they're going to feed you and if you act nicely you might even get to hang out in heir club/members lounge and soak up some free or cheap booze. If
you have to stay overnight they'll pay for your room and on top of it all you're probably going to get vouchers that will reduce the cost of your next trip.

Understand with the increased competition from cut rate/cut service airlines and the increasing prices of aircraft, aircraft fuel, regulatory compliance, airport fees, rent and the loss of revenue on freight
(as many freight companies now fly their own birds) the margin on air travel has shrunk. If the airlines aren't making as much money they don't have the cushion to make nice to you when things get screwed up.
As far as moving crew if they don't have crew and birds ready at places in the morning the whole day goes south possibly leaving hundreds or maybe thousands of passenger stranded, missing connections or
waiting for connections that aren't going to happen.
 
Again if the crew took the LATER flight would they be current on CREW REST for their flight? Read your ticket, you aren't buying what you think you are. If you have a ticket it doesn't mean for sure you're going to be on that specific flight, it does however mean the airline has obligation to you to get you where you are going and if through no fault of your own but some fault of the airline's you are delayed in getting there they have additional obligations to you (food, lodging and monetary compensation), if you are delayed through no fault of the airlines (like weather) they don't have that obligation.
 
not a valid analogy, as the cows are a tangible asset. If I buy a cow from you and don't show up to pick it up you still have the cow. With an airline ticket if I buy a ride from you and don't show up and that seat goes empty the service provided is no longer available. Because of LAW there are some things about tickets that leave the airline with some liability over unused tickets. If I buy a ticket for a flight and don't show up the airline, by law, has obligation to either book me on another flight (with the possibility of some additional charges) or provide a refund (with some reduction in the amount refunded) if the it wasn't the airlines fault I didn't fly. If we force the airlines to not overbook they'll have to add additional cost to each ticket to pay for the seats that end up empty because folks changed their mind about flying and the law requires the airline give a refund. So are you willing to pay an additional 10 to 25% on each ticket so 3-5% of the passengers don't get bumped?
 
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