Passenger removed from United Airlines flight

razorblunt

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/nation-now/2017/04/10/man-forcibly-removed-united-flight/100276054/

LOUISVILLE — A video posted on Facebook late Sunday evening shows a passenger on a United Airlines flight being forcibly removed from the plane before takeoff at O’Hare International Airport.

The video, posted by Audra D. Bridges at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, is taken from an aisle seat on a commercial airplane that appears to be preparing to take flight. The 31-second clip shows three men wearing radio equipment and security jackets speaking with a man seated on the plane. After a few seconds, one of the men grabs the passenger, who screams, and drags him by his arms toward the front of the plane. The video ends before anything else is shown.

A United spokesperson confirmed in an email Sunday night that a passenger had been taken off a flight in Chicago.





"Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked," said the spokesperson. "After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate.



"We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities."

Bridges, a Louisville resident, gave her account of the flight Sunday night.

Last thread was closed, I've made this new based on feedback from a Mod to the OP.

From all accounts of other passengers they guy refused to move out of his seat after his name was drawn from a list of people to give up seats for United staff that were required to board a flight in Dallas the following morning.

A couple, having had their names drawn earlier, left when called, this guy insisted he needed to get to Dallas "to see patients" the next morning.

It seems he somehow got back on the flight after this video ended and ran down to the back of the plane.

AudreyHepburn

Sorry but I find it hard to believe that the police would get involved in a simple dispute over over-booking - or that you'd even be let on to the plane in the first place.

There's more to this than meets the eye.

The_Valeyard

Nice lawsuit there.

Should be a nice payout.

me_irl

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Sorry but I find it hard to believe that the police would get involved in a simple dispute over over-booking - or that you'd even be let on to the plane in the first place.

There's more to this than meets the eye.

Transformers are involved!?!

razorblunt

Potentially, alternative versions, from those on the flight have yet to surface though.
All accounts to date indicate the heavy handedness.

everlast75

me_irl wrote: »

Transformers are involved!?!

"He was acting completely out of order - he had to go"

Starscream, witness

buried

razorblunt

everlast75 wrote: »

"He was acting completely out of order - he had to go"

Starscream, witness

"I am MEGATRON" were the last words heard as he was dragged out the door.

GLaDOS

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Sorry but I find it hard to believe that the police would get involved in a simple dispute over over-booking - or that you'd even be let on to the plane in the first place.

There's more to this than meets the eye.

From what I've read, it counted as a captain's order for him to be removed. Disobeying a captain's order = police involved.

Not that that is necessarily the truth.

The_Valeyard

me_irl wrote: »

Transformers are involved!?!

Them crazy deceptacons at it again.

Fr_Dougal

Big thread on Reddit. Flight was overbooked, nobody was interested in the $800 to be bumped, so they picked people randomly.

Generally I'm against litigation, but I Hope he sues for millions.

The Backwards Man

In my day our whole football went to matches in a Morris Minor, subs and all. He could have sat on the Captain's knee or something

I love Sean nos

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Flight was overbooked

I read elsewhere that they wanted four seats for their own staff.

Sonics2k

Looking at some of the videos on Twitter about this, what an absolute joke of a situation.

United Airlines overbooked the flight. When no-one was willing to do so the Captain then volunteered random seats to get off the flight.

The passenger in question refused as he is a Doctor and was on his way to work essentially.

Four security guards showed up and forcibly dragged the man out of his seat, hitting his face into another seat in the process and then dragged him off the flight.

https://twitter.com/Tyler_Bridges/status/851214160042106880

https://twitter.com/JayseDavid/status/851223662976004096

He somehow managed to get back on the plane but looks to be seriously out of it, possibly a concussion judging by the behaviour.

https://twitter.com/Tyler_Bridges/status/851228695360663552

My name is URL

Poor man looks proper confused and traumatized in that last video.

United Airlines fcuked themselves in how they handled this situation which was of their own making.

Not only the bad publicity, but the imminent million dollar lawsuit that's on the way. Hope the guy cleans up

Apparently he had a very important meeting with a patient the next day which is why he was so adamant about staying on the plane.

Winterlong

United airlines have been mighty quiet on this.
Apparently the 800 offer was upped to 1200 and when no one volunteered to leave the plane the captain then randomly selected 4 passengers.

And we criticise Ryan air!!

listermint

Surely united should be putting staff in a car or arranging other staff to take whatever flight is necessary or getting other staff in.

This situation is ridiculous

Shelflife

So someone in the airline screwed up and forgot they were supposed to keep 4 seats for staff , passengers were allowed to board and take their seats and then they realised their problem.

They try to buy their way out of the situation and get to $800 and a hotel room, no takers so they try to remove a fully paid up passenger by force just so they can get a member of staff on.

Why didnt they up their offer ?

Its going to take a whole lot more to settle this and the bad publicity backlash will be huge

LenaClaire

What I am curious about is - Why did they let the people on the plane if it was oversold?

DontThankMe

LenaClaire wrote: »

What I am curious about is - Why did they let the people on the plane if it was oversold?

Because they are idiots

Venom

LenaClaire wrote: »

What I am curious about is - Why did they let the people on the plane if it was oversold?

I'd say the 4 staff members must of been last to get on and then saw there were no seats left.

Shocking way to handle the situation which they couldn't of handled worse. As a previous poster said, sticking those 4 staff members on another flight would of been the correct and smart way of dealing with it.

listermint

LenaClaire wrote: »

What I am curious about is - Why did they let the people on the plane if it was oversold?

Because most American airlines do this all the time it's a daily occurrence of offering money back . Happens every day on hundreds of flights.

Great if you have the time or inclination to take their money but not if you need to get where you booked your flight for

darced

This post has been deleted.

Luggnuts

Airlines overbook all the time. They gamble on non-refundable cancellations.

Barry Badrinath

darced wrote: »

'I have to go home' video is comedy gold.

Is it a Meme yet?

What a shower of fcuktards. I hope yer man sues the bollox off United.

My name is URL

The fact that he managed to get back on to the plane doesn't bode well for the airline or the police that dragged him off the plane.

I mean what does that suggest? They just got him off the plane and then and left it at that. They didn't arrest the guy for anything and didn't get him any medical attention once he was taken off, even though he had his head smashed against an arm-rest and was knocked out and bleeding.

Whatever about the lawsuit, I hope the guy presses assault charges against the thugs that needlessly escalated the situation.

Jayop

Senor Fancy Pants wrote: »

Is it a Meme yet?

What a shower of fcuktards. I hope yer man sues the bollox off Delta.

Bit harsh to sue Delta for a United incident

LenaClaire

listermint wrote: »

Because most American airlines do this all the time it's a daily occurrence of offering money back . Happens every day on hundreds of flights.

Great if you have the time or inclination to take their money but not if you need to get where you booked your flight for

I know most of them oversell, but they don't usually board people, or give boarding passes with seats to people until they have the correct number of people for the flight.

Usually all of the oversold business is handled prior to boarding. I travel a lot in the US and have never seen them ask people to deplane after they have already boarded.

There are loads of people on twitter saying they are boycotting United over this.

How many actually will is another story. I wonder will this mean I'll get cheaper flights in July.

GhostyMcGhost

[Deleted User] wrote: »

There are loads of people on twitter saying they are boycotting United over this.

How many actually will is another story. I wonder will this mean I'll get cheaper flights in July.

Nice. That guy got turfed around, but so long as you get cheap flights, then all is good

Barry Badrinath

Jayop wrote: »

Bit harsh to sue Delta for a United incident

Was just seeing if the Class was paying attention.

Cos the teacher wasnt! :pac:

Parchment

They just randomly selected him? Jesus i hope he sues them to high hell.

vicwatson

Some dickhead on one of the videos - "way to go, great job" to the police - if he was saying it in a sarcastic way he sure didn't sound like it

tricky D

Gives new meaning to, 'is there a doctor on board?'

Might have to change that to, 'are there 2 doctors on board' 'cos one is going to need the other when we are done.

muddypaws

LenaClaire wrote: »

I know most of them oversell, but they don't usually board people, or give boarding passes with seats to people until they have the correct number of people for the flight.

Usually all of the oversold business is handled prior to boarding. I travel a lot in the US and have never seen them ask people to deplane after they have already boarded.

It happened to me once coming back from Detroit to London where I had changed planes returning from Canada. We were all on the plane already seated when they asked if anyone would get off. I took them up on the offer of €800 and a different flight which left half an hour later, but went to Amsterdam, where I was then put on a connecting flight to London. Yeah, it was a few hours longer, but the flight voucher came in very handy later on in the year. My luggage stayed on the original flight - this was pre 9/11 - and was delivered to my flat the day after.

This has already had 3 threads closed on Reddit because it goes against their house rules of not showing videos featuring police brutality.

Edit: They've gotten around it, and a mod-approved thread is now open and very active - https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/64jl6s/man_returns_to_airplane_bloodied_and_confused/

Reportedly...

The flight was overbooked with paying passengers, but UA needed to get some of their off-duty crew on-board at the last minute to take them back to Louisville, Kentucky.

Overbooking flights and bumping is reportedly a regular practice with certain airlines especially in the US. It is quite effective in maximising profits. There are laws set to deal with the outcome of such a scenario in the US, where an airline must offer the bumped customer up to $1300 in the worst case scenario of not being able to get them to their destination within 6 hours.

However, from reading many anecdotal comments in the reddit thread, it seems the airlines never offer you hard cash unless pushed hard. Of course, they prefer to give you the sum in vouchers to be spent on the airline's products or those of its affiliates. Say you are offered $500, you get 10 x $50 dollar vouchers which can only be used one at a time, and you have a low time limit to use them. So it's nothing like getting offered cash.

Eye-witness from the flight:

"Passengers were told that the flight would not take off until the United crew had seats, Bridges said, and the offer was increased to $800, but no one volunteered.


Then, she said, a manager came aboard the plane and said a computer would select four people to be taken off the flight. One couple was selected first and left the airplane, she said, before the man in the video was confronted."

Then we see what happened in the videos.

Edit: Full article on the incident including eye witness account:

http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/04/10/video-shows-man-forcibly-removed-united-flight-chicago-louisville/100274374/

Yeah I hope he gets a nice financial settlement, but this shouldn't be happening in the first place.

housetypeb

"Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked," the spokesperson said. "After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate".

Spokesperson is confusing and downplaying the issue,which is their job,of course, but there is a difference between a volunteer and a randomly picked name.

Sonics2k

The response from the CEO of United Airlines is hysterical. "re-accommodate" is going to be a new meme

https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/851472158815645696

J Mysterio

vicwatson wrote: »

Some dickhead on one of the videos - "way to go, great job" to the police - if he was saying it in a sarcastic way he sure didn't sound like it

That was clearly sarcastic

Venom

Going by that Twitter link, the guy they beat and dragged off the plane was 69 years old :eek:

Hope he sues the **** back to the stone age :mad:

Thebe

United may have just solved their overbooking problems. Disgraceful.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

GLaDOS

That video of him coming back on the plane is really upsetting. Possible concussion?

Thebe

GLaDOS wrote: »

That video of him coming back on the plane is really upsetting. Possible concussion?

Quite possibly disoriented alright. Not cool.

jackofalltrades

I know some US Airlines act like they're a law unto themselves, but I never thought they'd go this far.
Bizarre to think some kind of manager, with possibly years of customer service experience decided that dragging someone of a plane was a good idea.
Did they not think that it would be recorded like every other of incident on a plane.
I suppose it probably had to happen once for it to never happen again.
Hope the passenger is OK and gets a nice payout.

Jayop

I'd imagine what happened was security was brought in to get the guy out but the manager didn't think they'd knock him the **** out in the process.

Outlaw Pete

69 years old and they did this to him? Hope he gets millions off the fcukers.

Thebe

they were police officers from the Chicago Aviation Department though, not your average security blokes, they should know better.

<source>

steddyeddy

GLaDOS wrote: »

That video of him coming back on the plane is really upsetting. Possible concussion?

Could be concusion or shock.

GLaDOS

I do wonder how much the police knew about the situation before they went in. If they were only told "uncooperative passenger, get him out now" it might explain (but not excuse) how heavy handed they were.

WoollyRedHat

Thread title should be retitled. Wasn't re-accomadated (as per ceo ****) nor was he removed, he was assaulted and dragged off the plane like a rag doll. Disgusting.