If you don’t like what the cops are doing you take it up IN COURT, not with the cops. Otherwise - expect to get treated the way this guy was. Doesn’t matter if you are on a plane or on the street.
This guy was a threat to the other passengers - a threat to them reaching their destination in a timely manner since he insisted on holding up the flight. So yes, unruly in a way that at least adversely affected passengers.
Oh and OT there actually are plenty of scorpions in the BA if you know where to look. Not dangerous ones though 
Uroctonus mordax. I Googled them and found out some folks actually pay for them.
http://shop.bugsincyberspace.com/Uroctonus-mordax-bic753.htm
1 Like
it felt a bit chilly, so here’s more fuel for the fire:
1 Like
At least they weren’t tossed out mid flight. From an article on that link…
The body of a man, who witnesses said was tossed from a plane, landed on a hospital roof in Mexico’s northern Sinaloa state on Wednesday, according to a public health service official in the region, which is home to notorious drug traffickers.
1 Like
I don’t think you can blame UA on this one. couple should talk to flight attendent when they found out someone took their seat.
“He said they moved to different seats in the same class, because people were sleeping in theirs and he didn’t want to wake them up.”
Weird story. Sounds like the stewardess could’ve given them a hand in waking the sleeping passengers… or just let them move.
This is a tangent since I know this particular incident was not related to overbooking.
Not picking on you Terri, but I have never understood this argument. Why is overbooking necessary to make profits? In the case of a no-show, wouldn’t the paying passenger lose their money? If yes, how’s the airline losing money in that situation? What’s so different for an airline vs all other contracts where overbooking doesn’t happen?
I believe the laws around allowing overbooking by airlines are archaic and need reform.
If the no-shows are refundable flights, the passengers’ losses are limited. In all cases, non-refundable and refundable, the airlines will be able to optimize their profit by operating at full capacity through overbooking. If their algorithm is wrong then of course they don’t gain anything since they have to compensate the passengers that get booted, but 9 times out of 10 there will be at least a few that don’t show up.
That’s the part I don’t understand in the current consumer-supplier context. Ideally, any supplier is able to charge only “one-time” for a given service. Same should be the case with airlines. Make tickets non-refundable for no-shows and stop overbooking. Why the quest to charge twice for same seat in case of no-shows and then bump people off in case there are no no-shows. It sounds like an archaic business practice to me that should be reformed - by law if reqd.
May be required by laws to optimize the expensive air travel 
CEO views the situation as overbooking because those four crews can choose any flight and time to check in and whichever flight that they checked in, the flight becomes “overbooked”, apparently set by big powerful union. After this incident, I guess union has to agree that crews (not those manning the current plane) have to check in 1 hour earlier before passengers start to board.
This is like the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory. If only United changed their policy, no overbooking but tickets not refundable either, they will lose business to Delta or American that still allow tickets to be refunded.
The only way to change is for the FAA to say no more overbooking. Then every airline has to change and we customers will have to pay more for tickets.
1 Like
This is exactly what I think should happen. And unless there’s some published data on how much on average passengers save per ticket due to this overbooking policy, I call BS on it. IMHO, it’s scare tactic for airlines to retain a very lop-sided tradition that should not belong in the current millennium.
No, not if the passenger is booking on a full-refund ticket (ie, business bookings).
My understanding–and this may be old, ie pre 9/11 where the economics were probably different and flights weren’t always 100% full–was that most flights made a profit on the last couple of seats that they sold. I also understand that no one has figured out a way to make a profit by selling all seats at the same price, so different class fares are a given. So if one assumes that last minute changes are inevitable and that filling those seats is necessary, overbooking is necessary.
The other option is to have some sort of Schtick that will make you stand out. Like a full-service flight at higher fares or perhaps Southwest’s “only the basics, but we won’t nickel and dime you”, method.
Isn’t the idea behind different fare classes is that airlines are making you buy an insurance for themselves when you buy a refundable fare class at higher price and this extra “premium” that passengers pay for refundable fare class would make the airline whole in the case of no-shows?
I just don’t understand why airline business unit economics is so different from other businesses. However, my not understanding doesn’t mean there isn’t a difference. Just that I don’t understand it.
Ok, gang, he settled. I wonder how much? 1M? More?
1M? Please. 20M at least.
No, I don’t think it would be that much…
well…maybe something like 8.8M would be perfect!!!
I guess 5. United is in a no win situation so it’s best to settle and move on.
The rich get richer… meanwhile the other volunteers got supposedly what, $800? The ones that know how to work it (the system) get PAID!!!
1 Like
I took UA for many years but wasn’t given the chance to earn a couple of millions.
I actually had great experience with UA on our return flight from Hawaii back to SFO. We were late for baggage check in and it was last flight to mainland for that day and we already checked out of hotel and returned our rental car.
After a long wait in front of ticket agent, they did some magic in their computers and then told us to run to the gate and we have 10 minutes to get there. Whatever magic they did, we ended up in the 1st class for our whole family!. Our original tickets were for economy class.