United Airlines - Costly mistake

Events occurring and how they relate/affect Anabaptist faith and culture.
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Bootstrap
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by Bootstrap »

I should share a guilty moment here.

Once I got on a flight, found someone else in my seat, went to the stewardess and asked what was up. She looked at my ticket, went to the person in my seat, and told him there had been a misunderstanding, this was not his flight.

I arrived earlier than expected, checked my flight number, and realized that I was the one who had gotten on the wrong flight, and this poor passenger had been bumped in my favor. Oops! I really felt bad about that. Especially on an international flight. But there wasn't much I could do at that point.
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RZehr
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by RZehr »

It seems like United is the culprit, but I'm not sure exactly how much United should be faulted. Businesses have norms that they operate by, and if United was following normal procedures, isn't this a little unfair? I mean, for all I know hundreds of people are involuntarily removed from their seeds each day. And perhaps a few of them need law enforcement to escort them off. And for all I know some of the time law enforcement has had to arrest people for not cooperating. Granted, I'm making assumptions.

Or lets say someone has a retail business, and a customer won't leave at closing time. At some point they are trespassing. If you call the police, are you responsible if in the process of law enforcement the customer is hurt?

I'm not talking about the Christian thing to do. I'm trying to understand this strictly within the framework of the typical American business/public/law enforcement social roles.
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ohio jones
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by ohio jones »

Bootstrap wrote:I should share a guilty moment here.
There's a song about that.

Usually the wrong flight situation arises from a last minute gate change, multiple small planes boarding from the same gate, confusion between multiple Lafayettes or Columbi, or Dallas vs. Dulles. Recently an elderly couple was put on the wrong flight by wheelchair attendants and airline personnel who somehow didn't catch the mixup. Sad!
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Judas Maccabeus
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by Judas Maccabeus »

ohio jones wrote:
Bootstrap wrote:I should share a guilty moment here.
There's a song about that.

Usually the wrong flight situation arises from a last minute gate change, multiple small planes boarding from the same gate, confusion between multiple Lafayettes or Columbi, or Dallas vs. Dulles. Recently an elderly couple was put on the wrong flight by wheelchair attendants and airline personnel who somehow didn't catch the mixup. Sad!
Someone got the wrong Sidney recently. Really bad news if you were looking for a sunny vacation.

J.M.
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Signtist
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by Signtist »

appleman2006 wrote: we all get totally enraged over every single incident even when we are not even close to being involved.
It worked in my favour, one time! :clap: :laugh
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MaxPC
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by MaxPC »

temporal1 wrote:
appleman2006 wrote:Not sure you need another person chiming in on this but I think both sides of the discussion here have some merit.

I am appalled at how our society has arrived at the place where we all get totally enraged over every single incident even when we are not even close to being involved. Having said that a company like United should realize that that is the new normal and recognize that no one wins when one of their passengers is dragged down an isle in this way.

And so while I cannot defend United in any way, nor am I ever worried about being treated like this simply because I would refuse to ever allow myself to be put in a situation like this. In my travels particularly when on business I am very seldom in a position that an 800 dollar voucher would convince me to delay my flight but I am confident enough of my negotiating skills as well as the fact that I would take being wronged before I would allow myself to be dragged kicking and screaming from a plane.

This incident is simply a sad reflection of where our society is at IMO.
so agree, appleman. glad you posted your thoughts here.
we should all be fearful of the power of internet lynch mobs. it seems, any detail of anyone's life or business can be blown up in an instant, there is a costly ripple effect.

last week, if i recall, there was a high school in Texas "under fire" because they simply denied a grandmother the ok to attend their Prom as a "date" with her grandson!

how can schools/teachers function when they never know when some decision is going to suddenly be blown all out of proportion, no attempt at a "fair hearing?" .. many don't want a fair hearing, they just want destruction! i am bothered how this may impact quality teachers who just do not want to expose themselves to potential smears and lawsuits. the same with school staff and admin.

in this case, did they ever consider requesting the grandmother be a chaperone or guest?!
not mentioned. civilized discourse is unwanted in a feeding frenzy.
Agreed and agreed. Then there's this story: I wonder if the scorpion was overbooked too?
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Ernie
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by Ernie »

Josh wrote:
Ernie wrote:https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/ma ... 100325694/

I don't get it why it would take the CEO of a company three public statements until he issues a decent apology.

United could have given each of those four passengers a private plane and United would have lost less money and salvaged their image. Stock might have even gone up.
There is significantly more than meets the eye with this story. Let's wait to pass judgment until a few weeks pass. I do not want to repeat a bunch of things, but some news reports are that this man was very troubled and perhaps suffering from significant mental health and behavioural problems.

I'm kind of bothered how quickly everyone knows exactly how an airline should run things 1 - 2 days after an incident. If we really are such experts maybe we should run our own airline?

(I'm also puzzled how many people absolutely needed to be in Louisville on Monday. An entire plane load of people turned down $800 in compensation in exchange for arriving a day later.)
True.
However I was looking at this strictly from a financial perspective of a large company. I was not attempting to judge who was right and who was wrong.
There are certain universal principles at work in the world that if people give attention to, it can help their bottom line, regardless of who was in the wrong.
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Bootstrap
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by Bootstrap »

RZehr wrote:It seems like United is the culprit, but I'm not sure exactly how much United should be faulted. Businesses have norms that they operate by, and if United was following normal procedures, isn't this a little unfair? I mean, for all I know hundreds of people are involuntarily removed from their seeds each day. And perhaps a few of them need law enforcement to escort them off. And for all I know some of the time law enforcement has had to arrest people for not cooperating. Granted, I'm making assumptions.
How do you think the other people on the plane felt about their trip? How do you think this will affect their stock price?

I'm also a little uncomfortable with using the word policy to avoid responsibility, something that businesses routinely do. If it is their policy, it is still a decision that they made. Yesterday, United took responsibility by changing their policy. They won't use police to remove you when they overbook a flight.

Legally, an airline can offer passengers as much as they want to in order to get them to give up their seat. They don't like to offer more than the extra profit they make by selling seats twice on the same flight. That seat has a free market value. If the airline pays the free market value for the seat, a customer will give it up voluntarily. After all, nobody makes the airline give customers a flight for less than the airline is willing to accept. If you only sell an airplane seat once, some people don't show up, and you probably don't have to rebook people if you need to send a few crew somewhere. Or if you need to do that, and they are at an airport, you could send them on a Cessna or something if you want to avoid bumping someone. So this situation comes up because the airline wants to do it a cheaper way.

I don't have a problem with selling the same seat twice, as long as the airline pays people enough that they voluntarily give up their seat. But it's at least a little strange that the airlines act like you did not buy a ticket to ride on a flight at a given time and date, everything you do when you purchase the ticket says that's exactly what you are doing, and something hidden in the fine print of legalese says you actually didn't buy the right to fly on the flight you just booked.

Yes, federal law is very generous to airlines, saying that if a passenger is involuntarily removed from a flight, the carrier need pay only 200% of the original fare, with a cap of $675. I'm willing to bet that airlines have spent more on lobbyists than passengers have on this issue. But if airlines are making extra money by selling the same seat twice and wind up having to boot people if they need to send flight crews somewhere or if everyone shows up, shouldn't airlines have to pay customers enough that they are willing to leave voluntarily? If an airline told me to give up my seat, I would, but I wouldn't feel well treated if they didn't offer me enough that I voluntarily gave up my seat.

JetBlue doesn't overbook. I like that. But they don't fly much from my airport. I don't know how expensive they are.
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Josh
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by Josh »

Yesterday, United took responsibility by changing their policy. They won't use police to remove you when they overbook a flight.
This means that "might makes right" is now United policy when it comes to problems where two people think they are entitled to the same seat. Whoever gets there first gets to stand their ground.

Given my own personal doctrine of nonresistance, I tend to always yield if someone claims they have a right to sit in my seat, until directed otherwise by a proper authority, such as an airline employee. But I think overall that the airline should get to determine who sits in its seats.

It doesn't make sense for whomever can find a way to sit in a seat to have a God-given right to stay there, and use the excuse that the flight was overbooked to somehow entitle them to violate the policies the airline has to handle overbookings.

Also, Boot, your math is off about compensation for overbooking of flights - if you're delayed more than 2 hours for an IDB you get 400% or $1,350. If they can't get you to your destination, you get a refund of your original ticket, too.
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Bootstrap
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Re: United Airlines - Costly mistake

Post by Bootstrap »

Josh wrote:
Yesterday, United took responsibility by changing their policy. They won't use police to remove you when they overbook a flight.
This means that "might makes right" is now United policy when it comes to problems where two people think they are entitled to the same seat. Whoever gets there first gets to stand their ground.
Here's a prediction: United will be able to handle these situations peacefully without police.
Josh wrote:Given my own personal doctrine of nonresistance, I tend to always yield if someone claims they have a right to sit in my seat, until directed otherwise by a proper authority, such as an airline employee. But I think overall that the airline should get to determine who sits in its seats.
What would you do if you were running the airline? Would your doctrine of non-resistance motivate you to pay the free market price of persuading someone to give up their seat, or would you use force to eject them? Pragmatically, which approach will make customers more likely to fly with you and raise your stock value?
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