If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares. Consider the success of airlines like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience.
United Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less than their peers like Delta and Alaska Air group who have risen closer to 400% in the same time period. If flying the friendly skies took them into bankruptcy, what could they have done that would've kept them afloat while maintaining a "regulated" carrier status?
This is the thing that always bothers me. By _far_, when (at least US domestic) travelers book flights, their main and often only consideration is ticket price.
People claim to be annoyed by baggage fees, not being able to select their seat ahead of time, no or limited food, paid in-flight entertainment, overselling, etc., but they refuse to vote with their wallets and pay more for better service.
We've made this bed, and now we're apparently pissed that we have to lie in it.
The real problem is that the pricing is so complicated that it's almost impossible to pay more for better service.
In my last flight, I would have paid to select my seats if it was reasonable but there wasn't any to actually do that which didn't cost a disproportionately huge amount and wasn't bundled with other perks.
When flights have a 50% swing in pricing for seats without any add-ons -- who knows what's going on.
I feel that part of the problem here is that booking sites don't tend to be fully transparent on how much any given flight really costs, beyond the initial ticketing cost. Extra costs are typically hidden and the UX is optimized for finding the cheapest possible ticket price, ignoring fees and overhead.
Tangentially, in some ways, its a fact of reality in the US that the price you see will almost never be the price you pay, which is generally higher. Americans seem to accept this as a norm and it still baffles me even after 17 years.
I'd blame corporate purchasers who blindly enforce lowest price policies over the actual flyer. United has figured out how to save my employer money by sacrificing my comfort and convenience.
The bar for basic service has dropped so far that you are no longer treated like a person if you don't pay for the extras. My wife and I saved up for a resort trip for our ten year anniversary only to find that our 4-hour flight included a seat without enough leg room for me to sit while the person in front of me reclined into my lap (I'm 6'2"). The passenger in front of me wanted to stay reclined and the flight attendant could only offer me a seat upgrade to sit by myself in a section with more leg room. Not my only bad experience with them but United was far worse than any other recent trip I've had.
We're pissed because they set the bar so low we have to trip on it. Those of us who don't fly often have no idea how bad it's gotten compared to how things used to be.
"Nor does United seem better for its employees, who used to own the airline, but are now stuck enforcing cruel and arbitrary rules, and assessing the punitive fees. They are cast as wardens, trying to keep unruly passengers in line."
That's an experience that isn't really unique to United though, the major carriers all have nearly the same legroom (+/- 1").
As a 6'1" passenger, I can tell you that your claim that you "couldn't sit" while the passenger in front of you was fully reclined is a gross exaggeration. Sure, I empathize with you that it was uncomfortable, and rest assured, you were paying an extremely bargained price for your airfare.
Basic economics also comes into play here: There are Economy Plus seats if you want a more luxurious amount of legroom.
The really fun times are when your shoulders are wider than the seat is, and you're in an aisle seat. Every time the drink cart goes by or someone heads for the bathroom, you get trucked.
I'm just waiting for the natural evolution of this system, where everyone takes their seat, and knock-out gas is piped in.
>> There are Economy Plus seats if you want a more luxurious amount of legroom.
I always pay extra for the Economy Plus seats if the price difference is $100 or less. I find it pretty uncomfortable even when the person in front of me doesn't choose to recline, and I'm only 5'7" in height. I would hate to be 6' or taller in regular economy.
As a 6'1" passenger myself, I can only assume you have short femurs. I've had that exact scenario happen to me on a flight - when the person in front of me reclines, my legs from my rear end to my kneecaps do not fit in the space provided in an economy seat.
I book seats that are Economy Comfort (I fly Delta) or exit-row seating, but when flying with my wife and children I sometimes need to choose comfort or sitting near them. (For the record, I choose to sit near them when I am forced to choose.)
I'm a little unhappy about being charged an extra $100 to fly Economy Comfort just because I happen to be in the 90th percentile for height, but I understand the engineering and social issues of providing seating in a fixed space for 200+ passengers.
I believe we're both slightly over one standard deviation above the mean for adult male height.
Regardless, I am a competitive distance runner (and have the right body type for the sport). My femurs are likely even larger than yours, and yes, my knees stick a little bit outside of my space into the adjacent seat, but I am still perfectly capable of sitting in my seat. I've had overweight seatmates that encroach more on others' personal space than my knees do.
Re: overweight passengers, if I ran an airline, there would be a seat with side panels to test your fit. The seat would have side pressure sensors. If you can sit in the boxed seat without touching either side, fine. If you can't do so without touching one side or the other, you'd have to pay more. We'd also charge for weight, something per-pound. It costs more in fuel to move each additional pound.
There would be a required training course for boarding and unboarding which all potential passengers would be required to pass. We'd also teach people how to put their carry-on in the bin in the correct orientation (with the widest side inserted depth-wise and the second widest dimension vertically such that 4 bags can fit into a normal bin instead of 3 or 2 + that one person's purse which should be under the seat). It'd be like a marching band, with timed choreography. We'd board using the front and rear doors. I bet I could reduce average boarding time to 20% of what it is today.
There would be no in-flight screens for entertainment, no drink or snack service, etc. There would be a double-walled [possibly plexiglass if no lighter alternatives exist] section for people traveling with children under about 12, with a bit of space reserved for anyone acting like they're under 12. This would contain the noise and smells. If this could not be made to work, simply restrict booking to passengers older than 12, then everyone else can appreciate baby-free flights.
The benefits of all of this would be reflected in ticket pricing and clearly-stated business practices + expectations. It would have limited appeal, but excellent customer service and I would expect a cult following of loyal frequent travelers who appreciate efficient travel.
A partially deflated capped water or soda bottle put between the seat and tray table let's the person recline recline without letting them discomfort you by over reclining
The trick is setting this up BEFORE the other passenger reclines. You're not supposed to recline your seat or have tray tables out during takeoff. All too often, the former rule is substantially easier to break than the latter without getting noticed by the flight attendants. So in practice, immediately after the flight attendants sit down while the plane is still taking off, said obnoxious passenger reclines their seat all the way back, even though they are technically not supposed to yet.
Exactly. As a mostly business traveler, I'd be delighted if there were no options other than business class service with champagne and caviar for dinner. (OK, I generally prefer beer and I'm not a huge caviar fan but the principle still applies.)
But most people traveling for personal reasons (and many traveling on business) choose or are required to choose the rock bottom price which results in not only stripped down amenities but also a general focus on cutting operational costs to the bone.
Furthermore, the big legacy carriers are still generally more attractive to regular business travelers because of their loyalty programs which insulate them from at least some of the worst aspects brought on by competition on price. (In that they get a somewhat better class of service without paying for it directly.)
The article discusses how the Justice department approved a series of mergers between the major carriers that significantly reduced consumer choice.
It's funny that this "vote with your wallet", "capitalism at work" rhetoric never finds fault with these near-monopolies. You can't have it both ways: either the justice department needs to do its job splitting up big business to preserve competition and consumer choice, or we need to regulate the market so that consumers are treated fairly despite their lack of choice.
You can't talk about busting up near-monopolies without first considering the market environment which created those near-monopolies. I don't see too many people asking how we got here in the first place. Without those questions (for which I have no answers) we're doomed to end right back up here.
Are you confusing the free market with capitalism here? Capital is striving to destroy competition; in a truly free market, consumers will counterbalance that if it is not in their interest (e.g. favor smaller airlines that give better service).
How could consumers possibly counterbalance a monopoly? The whole point of a monopoly is that you remove choice from the consumers while creating barriers to the entry of competition.
What question is there? We created monopolies with the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978.
It stopped forcing airlines to provide service to regional airports, and paved the way for the consolidation of the industry into the monopolists as Eastern, Midway, Braniff, Pan Am, Continental, Northwest Airlines, and TWA were liquidated.
I'm a little iffy on this idea that there is any monopoly on air travel in the US in any general sense. Maybe for specific routes, but if you look at the big picture, you have:
4 "major" carriers - American, Delta, United, Southwest
1 "mid major" / borderline major in Alaska Airlines
1 "not a major, but not exactly a regional carrier" in Jet Blue
and a bunch of regional outfits like Frontier, Porter, Spirit, etc.
That's not to say that more competition wouldn't be nice, but it's hardly the case that there is no competition. Heck, as far as that goes, Peter Thiel uses airlines - and their razor thin profit margins - as the prototypical example of why "competition is for losers"[1] in his talks.
With air travel the routes are the product. If there is a monopoly on the route, there is a monopoly. And a cartel situation with the carriers agreeing not to compete with each other on that route.
Businesses either need competition or regulation. If they have neither, you end up in the situation we have now. Airlines are killing all but a few chosen cities in our country by cutting flights and jacking up the prices.
On top of that, they're completely indifferent to customer service. It'd be bad for their business to care about the customers when they already have regional monopolies.
droopyEyelids said, "Businesses either need competition or regulation. If they have neither, you end up in the situation we have now." That sounds to me like saying that the current situation does not have competition.
I'm trying to talk with exactly the same degree of absoluteness that droopyEyelids is. Frankly, I'm not sure why you read my statement in any way different from that.
like Ryanair which charges for every possible amenity and slight convenience.
We've decided we like price discrimination (why charge every ticketholder for a bag of pretzels when we can charge only those that want it instead?). But we don't like violence or aggression.
I think the "new norm" of low-cast airfare we like is the price discrimination - not the violence.
And the United CEO seems to have finally clued into the right message:
"We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off," Munoz told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday. "To remove a booked, paid, seated passenger -- we can't do that."
"
...
According to Bloomberg, four of United's top five shareholders are also top-five holders of American. Three of them are also top-five holders of Delta Air Lines Inc. United's top 10 holders own about 49.8 percent of United Stock between them -- and about 51.6 percent of American and 37.6 percent of Delta.
American was up 3.8 percent yesterday.
...
"
As you can see, boycotting does not necessarily improve things. Just shifts them around a bit.
I think this particular incident will help, if only solely for the procedures around deplaning already seated passengers.
Needs more analysis, but it sounds like the airlines are somewhat limited in invoking "interference with crew members" as a threat, since the door isn't yet closed. At a minimum, they're aware now of the potential PR backlash.
Sure, the same people get the money in the end, but if one of their 4-5 nearly-identical businesses takes a serious hit, and the others grow, then they're learned what the market is serious about.
It's less money for them regardless of which business, because they'll have to actually offer compelling compensation for overbooking.
That's assuming this ends in this passengers favor. If that happens, and the average traveler knows that saying "No, thank you" is an option for deplaning...well.
Edit: Betting Congress will also soon raise the current $1350 limit per ticket on denied boarding. They love to find ways to seem like heroes.
> If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares.
I think that's not true either; the ability to readily compare fares has led to opacity in pricing by moving a growing and shifting (and inconsistent among carriers) set of services out of the base ticket price into separately charged services.
Interpreting market behavior as revealed preference assumes all the classical ideal market situations, including perfect information, which is particularly silly when the supposed revealed preference is for a status quo with deliberate selective opacity of key information.
I'm not sure this comparison flies. You can say a lot of bad things about Ryanair, but in some respects they treat customers better than many airlines. Yes, they charge for everything, but as a Ryanair customer you expect that. Yes, the Dark Patterns on their website are inexcusable.
At the same time, Ryanair doesn't overbook flights (they claim the hassle costs more than an empty seat). Ryanair has a pretty good on-time track records (partly due to underpromising, but still). Back on topic, Ryanair doesn't violently remove passengers from planes.
Here in Europe we usually have 2 options:
- Fly Ryanair/EasyJet/etc, pay to sneeze, but get from A to B
- Fly BA/KLM/Lufthansa etc, free soda hooray, *maybe* get from A to B
If I go on holiday I'm fine with BA as well. Free booze is nice and I'll survive the free hotel if they overbook me. No need to violently drag me off.
But if I need to be somewhere at a certain time, I'll endure the crammed seats and pick Ryanair without a thought.
>"If we as consumers are voting with our wallets, in most cases we're the ones who have accepted the new norm as acceptable in the spirit of chasing ever lower fares."
The consolidation of the airline industry and resulting lack of choices in the US has made voting with your wallets quite ineffective. Airline's have been practicing something called "capacity discipline" that ensures that reduces the number of flights and ensures that planes are always nearly full. Where are you seeing these "ever lower" fares? US airlines are flying fewer flights and certainly fewer direct flights these days in a practice called "capacity discipline" which is designed to make sure the planes are as full as possible. The fares on a fuller flight tend to be more expensive than fares on empty flight.
Also the reason why Ryan Air is so successful is not because they charge for every possible amenity but rather they have the cheapest labor costs in the industry Labor - 6€ per passenger [1]
But we are (I hope) voting with our wallets. We want low fares and decent treatment.
The corps found it easier to lower fares than to achieve decent treatment. They failed to understand our votes.
United is about to learn (when they shut their doors, I hope) that decent treatment was very important all along, and they screwed up badly by neglecting it. They got away with it for a while, but not anymore.
At the core doesn't seem to be evilness of capitalist corporations, but rather
a) the economic usefulness of overbooking
b) an uncooperative (ex-)customer (his refusal to leave being unlawful)
c) an unqualified and brutal airport police
d) the disastrous United management resulting in employees unfit to deal with situations like these (diplomacy, authority to up the bump-fee) and a company that didn't understood what kind of PR fallout this situation would bring.
> The property rights in this case are clear: the plane belongs to United Airlines, and the passenger’s ticket does not entitle him to a seat on the airplane in a situation like this where he is commanded to give it up due to overbooking.
It is exactly what booking a seat is: buying an entitlement to seat in that plane for that specific flight. Otherwise what's the point? I understand that overbooking can be useful for companies, but in that case they should just buy back the service they oversold. That's how markets work.
Property rights are not everything. What is protected in a market economy is the free transaction between two economic actors. United's property rights of the plane, of course (even though it's likely to be leased, anyway), but also the rights created by the contract between the carrier and the passenger. If you don't protect these rights, you have nothing like a functioning market economy. Capitalism relies on social structures able to protect rights.
Incidentally, according to one blog post I read[0], it's not actually so clear that they had the right to remove the customer. Apparently their contract reserves the right to refuse someone boarding if e.g. they are oversold. However, the contract also sets out a much more restricted set of circumstances for when a customer who _has_ boarded can be evicted, and none of those applies here. It seems like under a literal reading (he did board the plane, after all), he had the right to stay on the plane...
> One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat.
> It is possible in this regard to distinguish between the collective completion of the plane’s boarding process, which is not complete until all passengers have boarded and the cabin door is closed. But that is different from each passenger’s boarding, which is complete for each individual once he or she has been accepted for transportation by the gate agent and proceeded to the aircraft and taken his or her assigned seat.
However, by all accounts (including the statement from Oscar Munoz) is that the Airline Employees needed to board after the customers had already boarded.
The simple matter is that United really doesn't have a policy in place for such an event, but they tried to treat is as an overbooking anyways, which is questionable.
If this had happened before the passenger got on there wouldn't have been much of a story - but United got themselves into a pickle by not having a procedure in place for moving their employees around when the plane was already loaded up and ready to go.
Strictly speaking, refusing to leave was a violation of the airline's rules, but they also didn't really have the right to eject him per their own Contract. You don't surrender all rights when you board a plane, and quite frankly it doesn't seem like United has a lot of ground to stand on when it comes to this particular incident. They didn't have a policy in place and tried to make another one fit, but it was an awkward fit at best.
Hopefully some aviation attorneys will be interviewed on this topic. I believe the fact that US airlines are considered "common carriers" also influences their ability to refuse service. The United CEO has already changed his mind about how to message this. He said this on Good Morning America today:
"We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off...to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger...we can't do that."
I realize that "overbook" can mean different things but United flight #3411 wasn't oversold to statistically offset no-shows. Instead, the plane had a capacity of 70 seats[1] and United sold all 70 seats to paying customers with zero cancellations. That's a perfect economic situation for United.
What went wrong was 4 extra United employees needed a last-minute ride on that plane to Kentucky. Since this is an HN audience, I guess we could frame it as a massive failure in the "information flow" through their computer reservations system.
The very second that United knew they had 4 employees they had to acccomodate, their computer system should have immediately confirmed those 4 employees on flight #3411 first such that the plane only shows 66 available seats instead of 70. (Computers doing math for the win!) That way, either 4 of the customers get denied a boarding pass at the check-in kiosk, or they get denied at the gate that scans the barcode before they enter the jetway. Instead, United let all 70 passengers board and settle in their seats.
If United insists that their employees take precedence over paying passengers, their damn computer systems need to reflect that reality in the seating database!
All of those opportunities to have the computer system "help" were missed that would have prevented the situation from escalating to a bloody face plastered all over the news.
That's the part that drives me crazy about this situation here. I don't see any reasonable defense for involuntarily bumping a paying customer for an employee.
Especially in this specific situation! It's a five-hour drive to Louisville from Chicago. United should have chartered a van for the employees and driven them there.
They could also have just paid for those employees to take a competitors airline if it was vital for them to be there immediately despite their poor planning.
Does that mean, the employees took the liberty to kick the customer out? If so, I would think that they either didn't thought anyone to disobey and especially not to end up this violently. Still, this would speak volumes upon United's management.
> The very second that United knew they had 4 employees they had to acccomodate, their computer system should have immediately confirmed those 4 employees on flight #3411 first such that the plane only shows 66 available seats instead of 70. (Computers doing math for the win!) That way, either 4 of the customers get denied a boarding pass at the check-in kiosk, or they get denied at the gate that scans the barcode before they enter the jetway. Instead, United let all 70 passengers board and settle in their seats.
What you're describing is a race condition, to use the term from real-time software. By updating faster, you reduce the timing window, but the problem can still happen - the passengers are all in the jetway, but the 4 crewmembers are in the employee lounge and just a 3 minute walk from the gate. They can still make the flight before all the passengers are out of the jetway...
>, but the 4 crewmembers are in the employee lounge and just a 3 minute walk from the gate. They can still make the flight before all the passengers are out of the jetway...
In that case, I'm saying there would only be up to 66 (not 70) paying customers in the jetway. This still leaves 4 available seats for the deadheading United employees.
In other words, don't render those 4 extra United employees "invisible" to the reservation system only to later make them "visible" when they finally show up at the gate after all 70 passengers are already in their seats. United knew they needed those 4 employees in Kentucky hours before customers boarded #3411 in Chicago. The issue is that they had zero empty seats on that flight so they had to bribe/force 4 "volunteers" to give up their seats.
If United's computer system doesn't have enough sophistication to set aside plane seats for employees that have higher priority than paying customers, they deserved to have the situation escalate into a Mexican standoff between the gate agent, the seated customer, and the Chicago police.
If you're talking about a rare emergency circumstance where United's operations center doesn't know they need those 4 seats for employees until after all customers are boarded, yes that can still happen. However, that wasn't the case for flight #3411. The 4 employees were "running late" to appear at #3411's gate. This means they were not a "hot standby" crew at the airport's lounge. Instead, it meant that these employees were are either on an incoming flight or were stuck in traffic driving to the airport from home/hotel. Either way, United had plenty of time to reserve 4 seats on #3411 for their higher-priority employees but for whatever reason, they didn't do it.
OK, let me try saying it a bit differently. (You may be answering what I said, but not what I meant.)
All 70 passengers are in the jetway or on the plane. Say, 40 are on the plane, but 30 are still in the jetway. At that moment, United discovers that it needs 4 crewmembers on that plane. They have 4 crewmembers sitting around in a crew lounge in that terminal of the airport. They can walk to the gate in 3 minutes. 3 minutes from now, some of the passengers will still be in the jetway, waiting to board the plane. Now what?
It's not enough to just improve the computer system. The timing window still exists, even if it's smaller. What you need to fix this is some kind of business rule, like "You can't deny boarding to a passenger who's already in the jetway, no matter how badly you need their place for a crewmember".
I don't see anything compelling there. The only somewhat legal word is "property rights".
It doesn't mention the "common carrier laws" that may be involved here, and likely override any "property rights." I suspect we'll see more enlightened debate soon as aviation attorneys start talking about it.
> "For the airlines, the opportunity costs really do add up. Itir Karaesmen Aydin, an American University researcher who has studied overbooking strategies in the airline and hotel industries, puts it this way: If a 100-seat airplane sells $200 tickets, and only 95 percent of passengers show up, the airline loses out on $1,000. (Even if the airline doesn’t refund those tickets, it could have sold five more seats for an extra $1,000.) “The major airlines in the United States fly thousands of flights every day,” Karaesmen Aydin says—even a few empty seats on every flight means losing millions in potential revenue every 24 hours."
This is infuriating to read. Having empty seats is not an "opportunity cost", you sold the damn seats, you made your money, that should be the end of it. It does not cost the airline a single thing to fly with empty seats, other than a blow to unchecked greed. If people don't make the plane they shouldn't get a refund, and I'd imagine that the vast majority do not, so literally the only thing being "lost" is the extra money they had no business making in the first place.
This is a sick symptom of our gone-mad capitalism. I love capitalism, it's done great things for us but the relentless pursuit of growth, profit, year after year straight in the face of reality, morals and common fucking sense is getting comically ridiculous.
To add to that, flying without the passengers who didn't show is cheaper. Every extra kg is a cost in fuel, so passengers not showing up is already a net saving.
That said, I do see the appeal of allowing flexibility in tickets, allowing someone who's missed their flight to catch the next, with no/minimal additional cost. And I recognise that might need practices such as overbooking to accommodate.
Overbooking's been happening for years, on almost all of the airlines. Individuals do inevitably get caught up in, get annoyed/compensated for getting booted from their flight, but for the most part it works.
It breaks down in this extreme situation, where someone literally got beat up in order to ease logistics for an airline.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the logistics actually be much simpler if they did away with overbooking altogether? Then they'd have drastically fewer people needing to emergency board flights (since they weren't kicked off) and wouldn't need to compensate them.
It's more accurate to say a man got beat up because United sold his seat twice and couldn't figure out what to do about it when they got caught.
You're right to say that doing away with overbooking would simplify the system, simplify the logistics.
As a consumer though, it would makes things more complicated and/or more expensive. I would argue that in most cases, the airlines are in a better position to handle the complexity and costs than the individual consumers, who may be delayed, break down on the way to the airport, whatever.
This particular scenario is bizarre and unwarranted for two main reasons:
1. The event happened after the individual had boarded the aircraft. If the dispute had happened at the gate, the individual would have had to use violence to board the aircraft. As it happened after he had boarded, it was the aviation authorities (at the request of United) who resorted to violence, to remove the individual. It's also worth considering that violence at the gate is more easily contained (minimising harm to anyone, including the perpetrator) than violence on a confined aircraft. It's also worth noting that in all of the video footage available, the individual shows no signs of violent behaviour.
2. The flight wasn't even overbooked. It appears to be a last-minute decision for United to ship crew to a new location, whilst also deciding to give the crew precedence over paying passengers, who had already boarded. There's been some suggestion that there is no legal precedence allowing them to do this.
I think the practice of "over-booking" is unduly taking the fall in this example, because the flight wasn't over-booked, and even an over-booked flight shouldn't create the circumstances for this type of harm.
I don't get the hate for overbooking. If you know 3% of passengers won't show up for whatever reason -- they're late, missed connections, cancelled plans -- it makes sense to sell 103% of capacity and give everybody 3% cheaper fares. This is a good idea. They only thing we need to do is regulate overbooking to make sure that when this probabilistic premise fails, customers are treated fairly and respectfully.
I'm sure if United had offered $2000 for someone to take a different flight, they'd have found takers. The mistake here is poor management of the situation from united and Chicago PD, not overbooking.
If someone can prove this actually happened and United (or any airline really) didn't just pocket that money as profit, I will eat my hat and post the video for all to see.
Not proof, exactly, but... I read somewhere that total airline profits for domestic carriers from 1960 to 2010[1] were $0. The history of airlines is just bankruptcy, restructuring, reworking union contracts, belt-tightening, and rinse and repeat.
In this situation, shouldn't there have been some form of mandatory auction, where the Airline would have to bid to buy the seat back. Or do what Delta does, and form a contract with the passenger to buy back the ticket for a pre-agreed price?
I do find it shocking that the airport police got involved with what really seems to be a civil, rather than criminal matter, but then again, such are the times.
Airlines should not be allowed to use violence to enforce arbitrary, or even random rules.
The issue is that the guy refused to leave a private space, getting security or police to remove him seems like the solution to that problem in most other contexts. It's a different situation but if someone refused to leave my office they would definitely call the police
None of them address this situation. They broke the contract of carriage (as well as, it appears, his nose; three bully boy police officers beat up a 69 year old man, who has committed no crime, at the request of an airline).
Also, I suspect it could be argued that it was not a private space. Privately owned, yes, but not a private space. This wasn't trespass.
I'm not sure of the legal terms but it's private in the same way that Disneyland or a store in the mall is private. There's a lot of people there but they obviously have the right to arbitrarily evict you. I've been kicked out of a store for just being too loud before
It's private property. Which does not automatically make it private space. As I recall, part of the definition in at least one set of law involves whether or not it's reasonable to expect members of the public to be there without explicit invitation.
There's a lot of people there but they obviously have the right to arbitrarily evict you.
That's just plain not true. There are reasons why people can be asked to leave; those reasons are curtailed. There are unacceptable reasons to kick someone out. You may not arbitrarily evict people. If you evict someone for the wrong reason, you may have committed a crime. Obviously I'm talking about US law; in other places, other rules apply.
While I'm here, just because it's one of my favourite legal misunderstandings, putting something in a contract doesn't necessarily make it legally binding. But that one's just for fun.
I understand that's not true. I understand it is an FAA violation (i.e. breaking the law) to drop someone with a confirmed reservation in favour of an employee.
Additionally, what happened was also a violation of the conditions of carriage that the airline had set up. They were breaking their own rules.
What makes you say it's not illegal? Perhaps I'm reading the rules incorrectly.
I'm aware of the fact that they can't outright refuse service to most people but I was under the impression that they had some latitude in rescheduling people.
EDIT: that article makes sense. I'm obviously not sure on the legalities so I will defer to your understanding of it. I guess this case goes close to home for me because if I had to make the decision between canceling a few whole flights and kicking 4 people off a plane I probably would've done the same thing and I don't think that's unreasonable. I'm all for sticking it to the man but people seem more outraged at the company making a pretty understandible decision when it seems to me the security officer who really made the bad decision and bloodied the guy.
Some people did ask for more money to leave which united didn't agree to btw their was no overbooking which airlines can usually stop by not issuing the boarding pass. This was done so that united could send some of its employees to another place. For this they should have done an open auction instead of forcing someone out after issuing them a boarding pass and seating them.
Technically the passenger is in a private space when the plane is in flight as well. Can I remove him without reasonable cause? Probably not. I wonder at what point it's okay to remove a passenger when they paid for boarding, sat in their seat, and there is no reasonable cause.
I was as horrified by the video as the next person, but I don't think your little thought experiment isn't relevant as the consequences of throwing someone off a grounded and in flight plane are totally different.
But back to reality, I can't speak for other countries, but in America the right to exclude people from your property is quite strong. But much more importantly, while there are many factors, the police are generally not in a position to evaluate them, and as a result they do not.
For example, if I go to a restaurant, pay for my meal, but before receiving it get kicked out by the owner (without refund) due to my race/religion/whatever, I am clearly in the right and I can definitely sue. But that's in the future. If I call the cops, they can't do anything. They can't conduct a mini, instant trial to determine if I was discriminated against and determine appropriate damages. On the other hand, if the restaurant owner calls the cops, and tells them that a customer is refusing to leave, the cops will almost certainly come and take me out of the restaurant. I can sue later, but that's it.
Edit: just adding that a United passenger has even less rights than the aforementioned restaurant patron, because as part of buying a ticket they agreed to a shitty adhesive contract, the United Contract of Carriage (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...).
Obviously United screwed up and seems like a horrible company, and I think that forcing airlines to more explicitly disclose how flights are overbooked to their customers, including the resolution process seems reasonable.
But police getting involved in non-criminal matters? Not strange in the slightest. It wouldn't be strange at all for someone to call the police about a trespasser or removing a customer that refused to leave (from a bar, restaurant, retail store, and so on).
It's even less shocking since as part of buying a ticket you agree to a contract of carriage (which is a shitty adhesive contract, but that is a separate issue) in which you agree that United has the right to remove you from a flight.
And again, just reiterate, I found the content of the video abhorrent, but making a 1 off rule against airlines seems totally arbitrary. If all other types of businesses are allowed to call the police, why not airlines?
Do police coerce people with violence? Sometimes, yes. But what does that have to do with United. That's an issue with political authority.
Another dumb article focusing in overbooking. Unfortunately, United was given a free pass as most media erroneously attribute this error to overbooking. It was not. They fly was at full capacity, but they didn't overbook clients. They removed a fully seated paying customer, breaking their contract, to accommodate employees. This is not about overbooking, is an illegal removal of a protected paying customer.
88 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 146 ms ] threadUnited Airlines has largely been the laggard in the industry in the past 5 years even though their stock price has risen 200%, that is 50% less than their peers like Delta and Alaska Air group who have risen closer to 400% in the same time period. If flying the friendly skies took them into bankruptcy, what could they have done that would've kept them afloat while maintaining a "regulated" carrier status?
People claim to be annoyed by baggage fees, not being able to select their seat ahead of time, no or limited food, paid in-flight entertainment, overselling, etc., but they refuse to vote with their wallets and pay more for better service.
We've made this bed, and now we're apparently pissed that we have to lie in it.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2017/04/11/another-passenger-...
They alienate those who are not considering the ticket price too.
In my last flight, I would have paid to select my seats if it was reasonable but there wasn't any to actually do that which didn't cost a disproportionately huge amount and wasn't bundled with other perks.
When flights have a 50% swing in pricing for seats without any add-ons -- who knows what's going on.
Tangentially, in some ways, its a fact of reality in the US that the price you see will almost never be the price you pay, which is generally higher. Americans seem to accept this as a norm and it still baffles me even after 17 years.
We're pissed because they set the bar so low we have to trip on it. Those of us who don't fly often have no idea how bad it's gotten compared to how things used to be.
"Nor does United seem better for its employees, who used to own the airline, but are now stuck enforcing cruel and arbitrary rules, and assessing the punitive fees. They are cast as wardens, trying to keep unruly passengers in line."
As a 6'1" passenger, I can tell you that your claim that you "couldn't sit" while the passenger in front of you was fully reclined is a gross exaggeration. Sure, I empathize with you that it was uncomfortable, and rest assured, you were paying an extremely bargained price for your airfare.
Basic economics also comes into play here: There are Economy Plus seats if you want a more luxurious amount of legroom.
I'm just waiting for the natural evolution of this system, where everyone takes their seat, and knock-out gas is piped in.
Unless they charge you for the gas, the the airline wouldn't be able to make money off booze, food, headphones, etc.
I always pay extra for the Economy Plus seats if the price difference is $100 or less. I find it pretty uncomfortable even when the person in front of me doesn't choose to recline, and I'm only 5'7" in height. I would hate to be 6' or taller in regular economy.
I book seats that are Economy Comfort (I fly Delta) or exit-row seating, but when flying with my wife and children I sometimes need to choose comfort or sitting near them. (For the record, I choose to sit near them when I am forced to choose.)
I'm a little unhappy about being charged an extra $100 to fly Economy Comfort just because I happen to be in the 90th percentile for height, but I understand the engineering and social issues of providing seating in a fixed space for 200+ passengers.
Regardless, I am a competitive distance runner (and have the right body type for the sport). My femurs are likely even larger than yours, and yes, my knees stick a little bit outside of my space into the adjacent seat, but I am still perfectly capable of sitting in my seat. I've had overweight seatmates that encroach more on others' personal space than my knees do.
There would be a required training course for boarding and unboarding which all potential passengers would be required to pass. We'd also teach people how to put their carry-on in the bin in the correct orientation (with the widest side inserted depth-wise and the second widest dimension vertically such that 4 bags can fit into a normal bin instead of 3 or 2 + that one person's purse which should be under the seat). It'd be like a marching band, with timed choreography. We'd board using the front and rear doors. I bet I could reduce average boarding time to 20% of what it is today.
There would be no in-flight screens for entertainment, no drink or snack service, etc. There would be a double-walled [possibly plexiglass if no lighter alternatives exist] section for people traveling with children under about 12, with a bit of space reserved for anyone acting like they're under 12. This would contain the noise and smells. If this could not be made to work, simply restrict booking to passengers older than 12, then everyone else can appreciate baby-free flights.
The benefits of all of this would be reflected in ticket pricing and clearly-stated business practices + expectations. It would have limited appeal, but excellent customer service and I would expect a cult following of loyal frequent travelers who appreciate efficient travel.
I would guess you would need a fairly big legal defense fund for this endeavor.
Average seat pitch is 31 inches these days, but the room you would have from buttocks to your knee would be smaller than that. 22 inches isn't uncommon: http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PJ-BY155A_MIDSE_16...
"Buttock to Knee length" seems to range from about 21 to 25 inches: http://ergotmc.gtri.gatech.edu/dgt/images/hbfg0713.gif
It's not hard to imagine someone with 24 inch+ b-to-k having trouble fitting them into a 22 inch space.
My son is 6'3", and has real issues with this.
But most people traveling for personal reasons (and many traveling on business) choose or are required to choose the rock bottom price which results in not only stripped down amenities but also a general focus on cutting operational costs to the bone.
Furthermore, the big legacy carriers are still generally more attractive to regular business travelers because of their loyalty programs which insulate them from at least some of the worst aspects brought on by competition on price. (In that they get a somewhat better class of service without paying for it directly.)
The article discusses how the Justice department approved a series of mergers between the major carriers that significantly reduced consumer choice.
It's funny that this "vote with your wallet", "capitalism at work" rhetoric never finds fault with these near-monopolies. You can't have it both ways: either the justice department needs to do its job splitting up big business to preserve competition and consumer choice, or we need to regulate the market so that consumers are treated fairly despite their lack of choice.
It stopped forcing airlines to provide service to regional airports, and paved the way for the consolidation of the industry into the monopolists as Eastern, Midway, Braniff, Pan Am, Continental, Northwest Airlines, and TWA were liquidated.
4 "major" carriers - American, Delta, United, Southwest
1 "mid major" / borderline major in Alaska Airlines
1 "not a major, but not exactly a regional carrier" in Jet Blue
and a bunch of regional outfits like Frontier, Porter, Spirit, etc.
That's not to say that more competition wouldn't be nice, but it's hardly the case that there is no competition. Heck, as far as that goes, Peter Thiel uses airlines - and their razor thin profit margins - as the prototypical example of why "competition is for losers"[1] in his talks.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fx5Q8xGU8k
Businesses either need competition or regulation. If they have neither, you end up in the situation we have now. Airlines are killing all but a few chosen cities in our country by cutting flights and jacking up the prices.
On top of that, they're completely indifferent to customer service. It'd be bad for their business to care about the customers when they already have regional monopolies.
I'm trying to talk with exactly the same degree of absoluteness that droopyEyelids is. Frankly, I'm not sure why you read my statement in any way different from that.
I think the "new norm" of low-cast airfare we like is the price discrimination - not the violence.
"The man who was dragged off a United Airlines flight suffered a broken nose and concussion and lost two front teeth"
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-live-stream-david-dao-...
And the United CEO seems to have finally clued into the right message:
"We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off," Munoz told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday. "To remove a booked, paid, seated passenger -- we can't do that."
" ... According to Bloomberg, four of United's top five shareholders are also top-five holders of American. Three of them are also top-five holders of Delta Air Lines Inc. United's top 10 holders own about 49.8 percent of United Stock between them -- and about 51.6 percent of American and 37.6 percent of Delta. American was up 3.8 percent yesterday. ... "
As you can see, boycotting does not necessarily improve things. Just shifts them around a bit.
Needs more analysis, but it sounds like the airlines are somewhat limited in invoking "interference with crew members" as a threat, since the door isn't yet closed. At a minimum, they're aware now of the potential PR backlash.
That's assuming this ends in this passengers favor. If that happens, and the average traveler knows that saying "No, thank you" is an option for deplaning...well.
Edit: Betting Congress will also soon raise the current $1350 limit per ticket on denied boarding. They love to find ways to seem like heroes.
I think that's not true either; the ability to readily compare fares has led to opacity in pricing by moving a growing and shifting (and inconsistent among carriers) set of services out of the base ticket price into separately charged services.
Interpreting market behavior as revealed preference assumes all the classical ideal market situations, including perfect information, which is particularly silly when the supposed revealed preference is for a status quo with deliberate selective opacity of key information.
I'm not sure this comparison flies. You can say a lot of bad things about Ryanair, but in some respects they treat customers better than many airlines. Yes, they charge for everything, but as a Ryanair customer you expect that. Yes, the Dark Patterns on their website are inexcusable.
At the same time, Ryanair doesn't overbook flights (they claim the hassle costs more than an empty seat). Ryanair has a pretty good on-time track records (partly due to underpromising, but still). Back on topic, Ryanair doesn't violently remove passengers from planes.
Here in Europe we usually have 2 options:
If I go on holiday I'm fine with BA as well. Free booze is nice and I'll survive the free hotel if they overbook me. No need to violently drag me off.But if I need to be somewhere at a certain time, I'll endure the crammed seats and pick Ryanair without a thought.
The consolidation of the airline industry and resulting lack of choices in the US has made voting with your wallets quite ineffective. Airline's have been practicing something called "capacity discipline" that ensures that reduces the number of flights and ensures that planes are always nearly full. Where are you seeing these "ever lower" fares? US airlines are flying fewer flights and certainly fewer direct flights these days in a practice called "capacity discipline" which is designed to make sure the planes are as full as possible. The fares on a fuller flight tend to be more expensive than fares on empty flight.
Also the reason why Ryan Air is so successful is not because they charge for every possible amenity but rather they have the cheapest labor costs in the industry Labor - 6€ per passenger [1]
see the section"Operating Model: Execution":
[1] https://rctom.hbs.org/submission/ryanair-the-lowest-cost-air...
The corps found it easier to lower fares than to achieve decent treatment. They failed to understand our votes.
United is about to learn (when they shut their doors, I hope) that decent treatment was very important all along, and they screwed up badly by neglecting it. They got away with it for a while, but not anymore.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Wu
At the core doesn't seem to be evilness of capitalist corporations, but rather
a) the economic usefulness of overbooking
b) an uncooperative (ex-)customer (his refusal to leave being unlawful)
c) an unqualified and brutal airport police
d) the disastrous United management resulting in employees unfit to deal with situations like these (diplomacy, authority to up the bump-fee) and a company that didn't understood what kind of PR fallout this situation would bring.
See https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/united-airlines-video-pas... for why United had every right to remove the customer.
a) the circumstances did not warrant his removal pre-boarding per the contract and
b) there are no clauses pertaining to post-boarding removal
IANAL so here's my source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sdtG0WyktMM
It is exactly what booking a seat is: buying an entitlement to seat in that plane for that specific flight. Otherwise what's the point? I understand that overbooking can be useful for companies, but in that case they should just buy back the service they oversold. That's how markets work.
Property rights are not everything. What is protected in a market economy is the free transaction between two economic actors. United's property rights of the plane, of course (even though it's likely to be leased, anyway), but also the rights created by the contract between the carrier and the passenger. If you don't protect these rights, you have nothing like a functioning market economy. Capitalism relies on social structures able to protect rights.
[0]: http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2017/04/united-airlines-own-contrac...
> One might argue that Dao had not completed “boarding” until the cabin door was closed. This argument would be wrong. The term “boarding” is not defined in the definition section of the contract, and absent an explicit definition in the contract, terms are to be afforded their plain meaning. “Boarding” means that the passenger presents a boarding pass to the gate agent who accepts or scans the pass and permits entry through the gate to the airplane, allowing the passenger to enter the aircraft and take a seat.
> It is possible in this regard to distinguish between the collective completion of the plane’s boarding process, which is not complete until all passengers have boarded and the cabin door is closed. But that is different from each passenger’s boarding, which is complete for each individual once he or she has been accepted for transportation by the gate agent and proceeded to the aircraft and taken his or her assigned seat.
United's own Contract of Carriage uses the term boarding and discusses overbooked flights: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...
However, by all accounts (including the statement from Oscar Munoz) is that the Airline Employees needed to board after the customers had already boarded.
The simple matter is that United really doesn't have a policy in place for such an event, but they tried to treat is as an overbooking anyways, which is questionable.
If this had happened before the passenger got on there wouldn't have been much of a story - but United got themselves into a pickle by not having a procedure in place for moving their employees around when the plane was already loaded up and ready to go.
Strictly speaking, refusing to leave was a violation of the airline's rules, but they also didn't really have the right to eject him per their own Contract. You don't surrender all rights when you board a plane, and quite frankly it doesn't seem like United has a lot of ground to stand on when it comes to this particular incident. They didn't have a policy in place and tried to make another one fit, but it was an awkward fit at best.
"We are not going to put a law enforcement official to take them off...to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger...we can't do that."
That's hard to reel back in later.
I realize that "overbook" can mean different things but United flight #3411 wasn't oversold to statistically offset no-shows. Instead, the plane had a capacity of 70 seats[1] and United sold all 70 seats to paying customers with zero cancellations. That's a perfect economic situation for United.
What went wrong was 4 extra United employees needed a last-minute ride on that plane to Kentucky. Since this is an HN audience, I guess we could frame it as a massive failure in the "information flow" through their computer reservations system.
The very second that United knew they had 4 employees they had to acccomodate, their computer system should have immediately confirmed those 4 employees on flight #3411 first such that the plane only shows 66 available seats instead of 70. (Computers doing math for the win!) That way, either 4 of the customers get denied a boarding pass at the check-in kiosk, or they get denied at the gate that scans the barcode before they enter the jetway. Instead, United let all 70 passengers board and settle in their seats.
If United insists that their employees take precedence over paying passengers, their damn computer systems need to reflect that reality in the seating database!
All of those opportunities to have the computer system "help" were missed that would have prevented the situation from escalating to a bloody face plastered all over the news.
[1] https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...
Especially in this specific situation! It's a five-hour drive to Louisville from Chicago. United should have chartered a van for the employees and driven them there.
Can you imagine going to home depot and someone pulling drills out of your hands and giving them to employees?
What you're describing is a race condition, to use the term from real-time software. By updating faster, you reduce the timing window, but the problem can still happen - the passengers are all in the jetway, but the 4 crewmembers are in the employee lounge and just a 3 minute walk from the gate. They can still make the flight before all the passengers are out of the jetway...
In that case, I'm saying there would only be up to 66 (not 70) paying customers in the jetway. This still leaves 4 available seats for the deadheading United employees.
In other words, don't render those 4 extra United employees "invisible" to the reservation system only to later make them "visible" when they finally show up at the gate after all 70 passengers are already in their seats. United knew they needed those 4 employees in Kentucky hours before customers boarded #3411 in Chicago. The issue is that they had zero empty seats on that flight so they had to bribe/force 4 "volunteers" to give up their seats.
If United's computer system doesn't have enough sophistication to set aside plane seats for employees that have higher priority than paying customers, they deserved to have the situation escalate into a Mexican standoff between the gate agent, the seated customer, and the Chicago police.
If you're talking about a rare emergency circumstance where United's operations center doesn't know they need those 4 seats for employees until after all customers are boarded, yes that can still happen. However, that wasn't the case for flight #3411. The 4 employees were "running late" to appear at #3411's gate. This means they were not a "hot standby" crew at the airport's lounge. Instead, it meant that these employees were are either on an incoming flight or were stuck in traffic driving to the airport from home/hotel. Either way, United had plenty of time to reserve 4 seats on #3411 for their higher-priority employees but for whatever reason, they didn't do it.
All 70 passengers are in the jetway or on the plane. Say, 40 are on the plane, but 30 are still in the jetway. At that moment, United discovers that it needs 4 crewmembers on that plane. They have 4 crewmembers sitting around in a crew lounge in that terminal of the airport. They can walk to the gate in 3 minutes. 3 minutes from now, some of the passengers will still be in the jetway, waiting to board the plane. Now what?
It's not enough to just improve the computer system. The timing window still exists, even if it's smaller. What you need to fix this is some kind of business rule, like "You can't deny boarding to a passenger who's already in the jetway, no matter how badly you need their place for a crewmember".
I don't see anything compelling there. The only somewhat legal word is "property rights".
It doesn't mention the "common carrier laws" that may be involved here, and likely override any "property rights." I suspect we'll see more enlightened debate soon as aviation attorneys start talking about it.
This is infuriating to read. Having empty seats is not an "opportunity cost", you sold the damn seats, you made your money, that should be the end of it. It does not cost the airline a single thing to fly with empty seats, other than a blow to unchecked greed. If people don't make the plane they shouldn't get a refund, and I'd imagine that the vast majority do not, so literally the only thing being "lost" is the extra money they had no business making in the first place.
This is a sick symptom of our gone-mad capitalism. I love capitalism, it's done great things for us but the relentless pursuit of growth, profit, year after year straight in the face of reality, morals and common fucking sense is getting comically ridiculous.
That said, I do see the appeal of allowing flexibility in tickets, allowing someone who's missed their flight to catch the next, with no/minimal additional cost. And I recognise that might need practices such as overbooking to accommodate.
Overbooking's been happening for years, on almost all of the airlines. Individuals do inevitably get caught up in, get annoyed/compensated for getting booted from their flight, but for the most part it works.
It breaks down in this extreme situation, where someone literally got beat up in order to ease logistics for an airline.
It's more accurate to say a man got beat up because United sold his seat twice and couldn't figure out what to do about it when they got caught.
As a consumer though, it would makes things more complicated and/or more expensive. I would argue that in most cases, the airlines are in a better position to handle the complexity and costs than the individual consumers, who may be delayed, break down on the way to the airport, whatever.
This particular scenario is bizarre and unwarranted for two main reasons:
1. The event happened after the individual had boarded the aircraft. If the dispute had happened at the gate, the individual would have had to use violence to board the aircraft. As it happened after he had boarded, it was the aviation authorities (at the request of United) who resorted to violence, to remove the individual. It's also worth considering that violence at the gate is more easily contained (minimising harm to anyone, including the perpetrator) than violence on a confined aircraft. It's also worth noting that in all of the video footage available, the individual shows no signs of violent behaviour.
2. The flight wasn't even overbooked. It appears to be a last-minute decision for United to ship crew to a new location, whilst also deciding to give the crew precedence over paying passengers, who had already boarded. There's been some suggestion that there is no legal precedence allowing them to do this.
I think the practice of "over-booking" is unduly taking the fall in this example, because the flight wasn't over-booked, and even an over-booked flight shouldn't create the circumstances for this type of harm.
I'm sure if United had offered $2000 for someone to take a different flight, they'd have found takers. The mistake here is poor management of the situation from united and Chicago PD, not overbooking.
If someone can prove this actually happened and United (or any airline really) didn't just pocket that money as profit, I will eat my hat and post the video for all to see.
[1] This is from memory. Actual years may vary.
I do find it shocking that the airport police got involved with what really seems to be a civil, rather than criminal matter, but then again, such are the times.
Airlines should not be allowed to use violence to enforce arbitrary, or even random rules.
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...
None of them address this situation. They broke the contract of carriage (as well as, it appears, his nose; three bully boy police officers beat up a 69 year old man, who has committed no crime, at the request of an airline).
Also, I suspect it could be argued that it was not a private space. Privately owned, yes, but not a private space. This wasn't trespass.
There's a lot of people there but they obviously have the right to arbitrarily evict you.
That's just plain not true. There are reasons why people can be asked to leave; those reasons are curtailed. There are unacceptable reasons to kick someone out. You may not arbitrarily evict people. If you evict someone for the wrong reason, you may have committed a crime. Obviously I'm talking about US law; in other places, other rules apply.
While I'm here, just because it's one of my favourite legal misunderstandings, putting something in a contract doesn't necessarily make it legally binding. But that one's just for fun.
Additionally, what happened was also a violation of the conditions of carriage that the airline had set up. They were breaking their own rules.
What makes you say it's not illegal? Perhaps I'm reading the rules incorrectly.
EDIT: that article makes sense. I'm obviously not sure on the legalities so I will defer to your understanding of it. I guess this case goes close to home for me because if I had to make the decision between canceling a few whole flights and kicking 4 people off a plane I probably would've done the same thing and I don't think that's unreasonable. I'm all for sticking it to the man but people seem more outraged at the company making a pretty understandible decision when it seems to me the security officer who really made the bad decision and bloodied the guy.
It's disturbing to see here and elsewhere (not so much you, but certainly others) the degree to which people doff their caps to big business.
But back to reality, I can't speak for other countries, but in America the right to exclude people from your property is quite strong. But much more importantly, while there are many factors, the police are generally not in a position to evaluate them, and as a result they do not.
For example, if I go to a restaurant, pay for my meal, but before receiving it get kicked out by the owner (without refund) due to my race/religion/whatever, I am clearly in the right and I can definitely sue. But that's in the future. If I call the cops, they can't do anything. They can't conduct a mini, instant trial to determine if I was discriminated against and determine appropriate damages. On the other hand, if the restaurant owner calls the cops, and tells them that a customer is refusing to leave, the cops will almost certainly come and take me out of the restaurant. I can sue later, but that's it.
Edit: just adding that a United passenger has even less rights than the aforementioned restaurant patron, because as part of buying a ticket they agreed to a shitty adhesive contract, the United Contract of Carriage (https://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/contract-of-carriag...).
But police getting involved in non-criminal matters? Not strange in the slightest. It wouldn't be strange at all for someone to call the police about a trespasser or removing a customer that refused to leave (from a bar, restaurant, retail store, and so on).
It's even less shocking since as part of buying a ticket you agree to a contract of carriage (which is a shitty adhesive contract, but that is a separate issue) in which you agree that United has the right to remove you from a flight.
And again, just reiterate, I found the content of the video abhorrent, but making a 1 off rule against airlines seems totally arbitrary. If all other types of businesses are allowed to call the police, why not airlines?
Do police coerce people with violence? Sometimes, yes. But what does that have to do with United. That's an issue with political authority.