United are stuffed!
It will be a long road back to a happy PR place.
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Looks like they have a clear "customers first" policy, even if it is just to drag them first off the plane ;).
The resulting PR damage must go into the 6 digits or possibly millions (depending on how they play this from here). Hard to understand why they didn't just offer the first 4 volunteers say $1000 each to take the next plane - and everything would have been settled.
But I guess this way the created a lot of free PR for every other carrier ... priceless.
Discl: Flew United once (in 1995) and never used them since ...
This is what is offered but it still didn't get any takers.
"Passengers were told at the gate that the flight was overbooked and United, offering $400 and a hotel stay, was looking for one volunteer to take another flight to Louisville at 3 p.m. Monday. Passengers were allowed to board the flight, Bridges said, and once the flight was filled those on the plane were told that four people needed to give up their seats to stand-by United employees that needed to be in Louisville on Monday for a 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."
Funny world - some calling for the video taker to be arrested
https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/stat...64111896989696
For some...maybe. SKC for example inflict great social harm on many of their customers but you wouldn't think an airline would do it !
On another level I suppose you're referring to how all airlines are dirty polluters and how so many multinational companies exploit dirt cheap labor in countries like Bangladesh and all sorts of other social and moral arguments but its perhaps worth noting that the average salary at AIR is over $100K per person and they crew get six weeks annual leave and most I have talked too see AIR as a very responsible employer with a very good culture. I think there's a ton of work to do to improve the culture at United. Their whole over-booking and dismemberment procedures in cases of overbooking look like they're badly in need of a total overhaul to me !
I wasn't referring to AIR in my earlier comment - was just responding to your sick bag comment about capitalism (which was closer to the truth than you hought)
Anyway hope the big AIRplane looks after me tomorrow - at least not one of those awful Dreamliners.
Have a good time mate, happy holiday :) BTW Capitalism doesn't need to be sick, making plenty of money and providing a nice service / product to customers are not mutually exclusive activities, (94% industry leading satisfaction rate at SUM a good example and AIR winning premium economy airline of the year award again another good example) You flying PE again this time or slumming it down the back with the rest of us less capitalist mortals ? :D
Yes me too; hope they've installed a comfortable fence for you onboard to sit on:).
Without wishing to inflame the discussion, you will find that most, if not all airlines take over-bookings. This is because there are almost always 'no-shows'. Each airline will have stats that provide a solid basis for determining how many no-shows there are for each route, time of day etc, and they will look to 'wing it' with overbookings. To my knowledge, Singapore Airlines are the most notorious
Pretty heavy handed approach to remedying the situation though...only in America?---Ive come to the conclusion that ,although i think price is an important factor--I would make an exception to avoid going through USA if I was going on somewhere else---(apparently tourism has declined since all the trump bans and that ''going through your computers and cell phone shenanigans).
Its terrible in this case however the other side of this is it is really great for those flexible. I have usually take advantage of this in the States on internal flights. I always book the second last flight of the night, happens 75% of the time they make an offer, I only take them up on it if they offer 800$ or higher compensation and still end up at my destination on the last flight of the night. Pays for all your domestic travel :-)