69-year old passenger doctor David Dao dragged off overbooked United Express flight UA3411

Join this forum to discuss the latest news that happened in the world of commercial aviation.

Moderator: Latest news team

Passenger
Posts: 7266
Joined: 06 Dec 2010, 20:54

69-year old passenger doctor David Dao dragged off overbooked United Express flight UA3411

Post by Passenger »

Incident on United Express flight 3411 Chicago-Louisville (9 April)

(aircraft : Republic Airways Embraer ERJ-170SE reg. N632RW)
http://www.airfleets.net/ficheapp/plane-e170-50.htm

United will probably face an extremely high indemnity to be paid to a passenger who was offloaded from an overbooked flight. A few passengers filmed the way he was offloaded by Police, on request from United.

http://www.whas11.com/news/local/man-pu ... /430022787

Additional comment on the Youtube post down below: "...A screaming passenger has reportedly been dragged off a US plane after the airline overbooked the flight... Multiple passengers on board United flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville filmed as police ripped an elderly man from his seat and into the aisle... "This is wrong. Oh my God look at what you did to him," one passenger yells as the officers drag the unresponsive man towards the front of the aircraft as blood trickles from his mouth... United Airlines confirmed to WHAS11 the flight was overbooked and no volunteers had offered to give up their seats... According to witnesses, the man – who is believed to be a doctor – explained he had to get home and could not volunteer to give up his seat... A short time late police entered the aircraft to force him off... United Airlines said in a statement: "Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate. We apologize for the overbook situation".



edited: the above is the first post on Luchtzak.be about this incident. At the time of the posting, it wasn't known yet that United needed four seats for crew positioning.
Last edited by Passenger on 12 Apr 2017, 09:05, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Trivia 2017 (miscellaneous news)

Post by sn26567 »

Passenger wrote: 10 Apr 2017, 15:11 Incident on United Airlines 3411 Chicago-Louisville (9 or 10 April)

United will probably face an extremely high indemnity to be paid to a passenger who was offloaded from an overbooked flight.
Incomprehensible situation. If he was in his seat, he had a valid boarding pass. When flight is overbooked, there are only as many boarding passes as seats in the plane. United should have left on the ground the passengers without boarding passes who had not yet embarked!
André
ex Sabena #26567

User avatar
quixoticguide
Posts: 1655
Joined: 23 Mar 2011, 18:41
Location: Pyongyang, DPRK
Contact:

Re: Trivia 2017 (miscellaneous news)

Post by quixoticguide »

sn26567 wrote: 10 Apr 2017, 15:24
Passenger wrote: 10 Apr 2017, 15:11 Incident on United Airlines 3411 Chicago-Louisville (9 or 10 April)

United will probably face an extremely high indemnity to be paid to a passenger who was offloaded from an overbooked flight.
Incomprehensible situation. If he was in his seat, he had a valid boarding pass. When flight is overbooked, there are only as many boarding passes as seats in the plane. United should have left on the ground the passengers without boarding passes who had not yet embarked!
Only with UNITED!
Visit my flights on: http://www.quixoticguide.com

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Trivia 2017 (miscellaneous news)

Post by sn26567 »

From what I understand, United asked for volunteers to give up their seat for UNITED EMPLOYEES who needed to catch that flight (I don't know why). Nobody wanted to give up his seat, hence a computer selected people at random. Wow! "The Friendly Skies of United" have changed since I last flew them...
André
ex Sabena #26567

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Trivia 2017 (miscellaneous news)

Post by sn26567 »

BREAKING (from AP): Chicago aviation department says that the officer involved in dragging an elderly man off the United flight has been placed on leave.
André
ex Sabena #26567

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United flight

Post by sn26567 »

United Airlines is pleased to announce new seating on all domestic flights- in addition to United First and Economy Plus we introduce....

Image
Source: McNeil on Twitter

The apologies of United CEO translated...
Image
Source: Justin Wolfers on Twitter
André
ex Sabena #26567

Passenger
Posts: 7266
Joined: 06 Dec 2010, 20:54

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United flight

Post by Passenger »

New United uniform:

Image

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by sn26567 »

Image
André
ex Sabena #26567

Passenger
Posts: 7266
Joined: 06 Dec 2010, 20:54

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by Passenger »

This the full response (no phrases have been deleted) from United:

April 10, 2017. Response to United Express Flight 3411

“This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers. Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with the authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened. We are also reaching out to this passenger to talk directly to him and further address and resolve this situation.” – Oscar Munoz, CEO, United Airlines.

http://newsroom.united.com/news-releases?item=124753

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by sn26567 »

A United spokesman says that the flight was not oversold, but rather 4 deadheading crew needed to get to Louisville for a Tuesday flight to Newark.
André
ex Sabena #26567

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by sn26567 »

A disturbing new video has emerged showing the bloody outcome after a United passenger was savagely dragged off his overbooked flight after refusing to give up his seat to a United employee on stand-by.

The video shows the man gripping the curtain at the back of the plane, repeating “I have to go home,” and “just kill me.”

Passenger Audra Bridges, who uploaded an earlier video of the incident to Facebook, told The Courier-Journal that United initially offered customers $400 and a hotel room if they offered to take a flight the next day at 3pm. Nobody chose to give up the seat that they paid for, so United upped the ante to $800 after passengers boarded, announcing that the flight would not leave until four stand-by United employees had seats. After there were still no takers, a manager allegedly told passengers that a computer would select four passengers to be kicked off the flight.

See the video here: http://gizmodo.com/just-kill-me-horrify ... 1794181325

Image
André
ex Sabena #26567

convair
Posts: 1945
Joined: 18 Nov 2011, 00:02

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by convair »

sn26567 wrote: 10 Apr 2017, 22:58 A disturbing new video has emerged showing the bloody outcome after a United passenger was savagely dragged off his overbooked flight after refusing to give up his seat to a United employee on stand-by.

The video shows the man gripping the curtain at the back of the plane, repeating “I have to go home,” and “just kill me.”

Passenger Audra Bridges, who uploaded an earlier video of the incident to Facebook, told The Courier-Journal that United initially offered customers $400 and a hotel room if they offered to take a flight the next day at 3pm. Nobody chose to give up the seat that they paid for, so United upped the ante to $800 after passengers boarded, announcing that the flight would not leave until four stand-by United employees had seats. After there were still no takers, a manager allegedly told passengers that a computer would select four passengers to be kicked off the flight.

See the video here: http://gizmodo.com/just-kill-me-horrify ... 1794181325
Absolutely outrageous behavior by United people! The company should be severely punished!

User avatar
luchtzak
Posts: 11734
Joined: 18 Sep 2002, 00:00
Location: Hofstade, Zemst - Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by luchtzak »

Terrible ...

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by sn26567 »

This incident is badly damaging United's reputation, but will also affect all its codeshare partners in the Star Alliance. Do you imagine SN will be happy when one of its guests is transferring in IAD to a UA flight having an SN codeshare flight number, and such an incident happens?
André
ex Sabena #26567

sn-remember
Posts: 848
Joined: 13 Sep 2004, 00:00
Location: Jodoigne/Geldenaken
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by sn-remember »

Don't tell me there were not a single teen in leggings on board ? These should have priority to be ousted (following UA 's dress code) or am I missing something ?

Poiu
Posts: 897
Joined: 14 Nov 2015, 09:38

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by Poiu »

sn-remember wrote: 11 Apr 2017, 00:53 Don't tell me there were not a single teen in leggings on board ? These should have priority to be ousted (following UA 's dress code) or am I missing something ?
You are missing something: the two teens were travelling on staff rebate tickets. For these ticketholders there is a specific dress code, which says: no leggings. This dress code is not applicable to full fare passengers.

Poiu
Posts: 897
Joined: 14 Nov 2015, 09:38

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by Poiu »

Regrettable indeed, but as always, there are two sides to the story.
The man was asked several times to leave the aircraft which he refused. Refusing to obey to the crew on board of an aircraft is a criminal offence, this is the reason why the policy was called.
No doubt the lawyers are going to be the only winners in this case.

Didymus
Posts: 190
Joined: 17 Jul 2010, 15:13
Location: Ghent, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by Didymus »

Passanger was asked to vacate his seat for commercial/operational reasons, not for safety reasons. This is a crucial element. That you have to obey the flight crew doesn't mean they have the right to demand you to do whatever they want.

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by sn26567 »

Poiu wrote: 11 Apr 2017, 05:30 The man was asked several times to leave the aircraft which he refused. Refusing to obey to the crew on board of an aircraft is a criminal offence, this is the reason why the policy was called.
You are absolutely right on that. The man was randomly selected by a computer to be given the status of "involuntary denied boarding", and as such he had no right to be on the plane, even with a valid boarding pass. That's the law. But then, there is the way to apply the law, and United failed on several counts:

1. The issue should have been solved BEFORE boarding. If United knew on time that four of its staff should have a MUST FLY status to be at Louisville to take their service on a flight to EWR, it should never have delivered boarding passes to four other passengers.

2. United offered $400 (plus hotel and meals) to leave the next day at 3pm. Nobody accepted. United raised its offer to $800, and I still can't understand (nor do I believe) why nobody accepted that offer. That's why they decided to expel four people. If $800 was not enough, they should have risen the offer even further. Everything has a price, and they could certainly have found volunteers at a higher amount. Now the damage that has been inflicted to them will cost them a lot more than whatever they would have to pay to find four volunteers.

3. Indeed, with the cost of the damage to their reputation, they could have flown their 4 crew to Louisville on a private jet. Several times!

4. The communication by United as catastrophic. Late communication, use of wrong terms, lack of suitable apologies, everything was WRONG.

5. Unfortunately the damage will not be limited to United, but will extend to the whole Star Alliance companies that codeshare with United.

United failed miserably, even if it abode by the law. And there is no excuse for it.
André
ex Sabena #26567

User avatar
sn26567
Posts: 40827
Joined: 13 Feb 2003, 00:00
Location: Rosières/Rozieren, Belgium
Contact:

Re: Elderly man dragged off overbooked United Express flight

Post by sn26567 »

And now, the United CEO adds insult to injury in this letter to his employees, supporting what they did and showing absolutely no remorse!

Image
André
ex Sabena #26567

Post Reply