{"id":6401,"date":"2017-04-10T20:08:14","date_gmt":"2017-04-11T02:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=6401"},"modified":"2017-04-11T14:10:51","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T20:10:51","slug":"not-flying-friendly-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/04\/not-flying-friendly-skies.html","title":{"rendered":"(Not) flying the friendly skies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:United_Airlines_-_N33286_-_Boeing_737-800_-_San_Francisco_International_Airport-0401.jpg;<\/p>\n

A United flight is overbooked. \u00a0For some unidentified reason, the crew has allowed all the passengers, plus four extras, to board, rather than resolving the situation at the gate, but once they\u2019ve realized that they need to straighten this out, they follow their usual procedures: \u00a0offering their usual vouchers (in this case, $800) plus paid hotel for anyone willing to exit the plane.<\/p>\n

When only two people\u00a0the vouchers, they, again, following the usual procedure, randomly determine two additional\u00a0passengers who are they required to relinquish their seats. \u00a0One of these does not and is dragged off the plane, with, reportedly, enough violence (or just bad luck) that he is seemingly knocked unconscious. \u00a0(It\u2019s not clear that this was definitively the case.)<\/p>\n

(See, e.g., the Huffington Post<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

What went wrong?<\/p>\n

One\u00a0wrinkle is that the \u201cfour extra\u201d were not \u201cregular\u201d passengers, but crew members who needed to be moved to their new location to report to work there. \u00a0Tweeters and commenters are complaining that they should have just rented a car and driven to their destination, a 5 hour drive with normal driving conditions. \u00a0Could United really have required this of their employees? \u00a0I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if somewhere along the way union contracts or FAA regulations prohibited it.<\/p>\n

Obviously, United shouldn\u2019t have let the situation get to this point. \u00a0It\u2019s generally understood that airlines overbook flights because they want to maximize revenue, and a certain portion of passengers will fail to show. \u00a0And the overbooking is one of the ways in which flights are as comparatively inexpensive as they are. \u00a0(Do I know how much flights cost before deregulation? \u00a0No. \u00a0But I know that the first time I flew in an airplane was for a high school trip to Washington that I had saved up for myself with my afterschool job.)<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s imagine that they hadn\u2019t \u2014 that they had chosen this man, randomly along with the three others, at the gate. \u00a0He\u2019d still be out of luck, stuck there \u2019til the next day unless he could find some other way to travel to his destination (a quick search suggests that Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains would have been options).<\/p>\n

Was it inherently wrong that he and the others were bumped, in the first place? \u00a0I\u2019m reading responses everywhere that the entire system is wrong, that airlines should be forced to offer however much compensation is necessary in order to get individuals to voluntarily accept the compensation, whether that\u2019s $100 or $1,000 or $10,000.<\/p>\n

Is that fairer? \u00a0Everyone\u2019s making the argument that this means that those who most urgently need to get home, will get there, and that those who are most flexible, will accept the compensation. But how much would airlines have to offer? \u00a0I have the impression that expectations have increased from what they once were, that people think of vouchers-for-getting-bumped as a chance to win the lottery, but at the same time, there are legal caps on how much the airlines offer volunteers. \u00a0And the purchase of a ticket entails terms and conditions in which the passenger agrees to the risks of being bumped.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, in the long run, those caps should be increased. \u00a0We can surmise that the airline industry negotiated those caps \u2014 but perhaps it was thought to be fairer to make the bumping process random, so that rich and poor had an equal chance of getting home on time. \u00a0And people keep repeating that he was a doctor who had patients to see the next day \u2013 but doctors reschedule their patients plenty often and their schedules are not sacred.<\/p>\n

But in the situation as it was, what should have happened? \u00a0Imagine if he has refused, and United had said, fine, if you won\u2019t get out of your seat, we\u2019ll just pick someone else. \u00a0Wouldn\u2019t it have been a recipe for disaster, if refusal to cooperate wins the day?<\/p>\n

So that leaves us at whether Security was \u201cnice enough\u201d when they removed him from the plane, and here I\u2019m just not going to weigh in because I suspect that idea of using the minimum amount of force necessary is difficult to truly put into practice.<\/p>\n

My bottom line: \u00a0knowing that the rules of the game are that you risk being bumped every time you fly, just as you risk flight delays or cancellations due to bad weather or mechanical troubles, it is actually the responsibility of the passengers to follow the rules that air a basic part of air travel. \u00a0 So, no, this\u00a0incident is not going to cause me to take my business elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Readers, would you have kicked and screamed if you were randomly chosen to surrender your seat, or complied? \u00a0And would you have been willing to pay an upcharge to have a guaranteed seat?<\/p>\n

UPDATE: \u00a0Ann Althouse covers this<\/a>, and adds some details, including a report\u00a0that, according to another passenger, after his claim of being a doctor didn\u2019t work, he played the Race Card, and claimed that he had been selected because he was Chinese. \u00a0Readers also chimed in that the pre-dragging standoff lasted a good 10 minutes, he started screaming when the police came to remove him, and he \u201cwent limp\u201d like a toddler refusing to cooperate, rather than being unconscious. \u00a0I was actually surprised at the number of her readers who had no sympathy for the man, who, after all, refused to follow the rules and tried to claim special privileges.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, it seems to me that the reaction of many of those who come down 100% in support of the passenger have a sort of \u201cwin the lottery\u201d attitude. \u00a0Airlines should offer $5,000, not $800, because who wouldn\u2019t want $5,000 extra in your pocket? \u00a0And the folks who say, \u201cUnited made a stupid decision because it\u2019ll now cost them far more\u201d are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, because they\u2019re putting themselves in the passenger\u2019s shoes and imagining winning a lawsuit. \u00a0Does the existence of cell phone cameras now mean that the passenger now always must get their way? \u00a0I have the impression the ability to record, and tweet, has led to magnifying incidents and changing behavior \u2014 even when you watch the video there\u2019s a woman screaming, \u201coh my God\u201d in a way that seems intended for the recording, not her genuine reaction to the incident.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 2: \u00a0Virginia Postrel shared, via facebook, a very informative article<\/a> on the topic, with an expert explaining why those 4 crew members needed to be on that flight (though not why they waited \u2019til everyone had already boarded to deal with it).<\/p>\n

Image:\u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:United_Airlines_-_N33286_-_Boeing_737-800_-_San_Francisco_International_Airport-0401.jpg; \u00a9 Raimond Spekking\u00a0\/\u00a0, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A United flight is overbooked. \u00a0For some unidentified reason, the crew has allowed all the passengers, plus four extras, to board, rather than resolving the situation at the gate, but once they\u2019ve realized that they need to straighten this out, they follow their usual procedures: \u00a0offering their usual vouchers (in this case, $800) plus paid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":6402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[602,603],"class_list":["post-6401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-united-airlines","tag-unruly-customers"],"yoast_head":"\n(Not) flying the friendly skies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A United flight is overbooked. \u00a0For some unidentified reason, the crew has allowed all the passengers, plus four extras, to board, rather 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