How about...to not physically attack a paying customer who had done nothing wrong (and had medical patients to see, to boot) so that a bunch of airline staff could fly for free?
Whatever the reason for the request, once it's issued you do need to follow it. Your personal appointments aren't relevant and don't grant you rights to remain on the plane.
"Whatever the reason for the request" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here because that reason refers to United charging money for seats that they had no intention to sell. That is fraud. What the victim actually got instead of a seat was severe beatings, a broken nose, and lost teeth.
Fine, however that does not entitle you to remain on the aircraft against all orders. Get off and deal with the issue separately without creating a new incident.
Being in the right (if that is the case) does not mean you can behave however you want. If a hotel denies your booking for whatever reason, would you just stay in the lobby anyway?
Jurisdictions can issue evacuation orders and curfews. Police can in many cases remove you for trespassing.
The United incident was a total disaster for United, they were incompetent and doubled down on that incompetence because of policies driven by their bottom line. The “police” that removed the trespasser were no trained and were also incompetent.
None of that changes the fact that if the captain of the airline thinks it’s a safety problem he can remove the passenger.
This is not technically correct. I am pretty sure that you are not allowed to immediately order someone off your property if they have been living there for a while.
> Who the hell has the authority to issue “orders” to a civilian?
The property owner of the property he is occupying against the owner’s wishes.
> What is this, medieval Europe?
Capitalism isn't the same thing as feudalism, though both give preeminence to property rights (in capitalism, the important ones are more likely to be marketable rather than fixed to predefined systems of inheritance.)
> The terms of purchasing the ticket includes your agreement that you might get bumped.
'Bumping' is the colloquial term for 'involuntary denied boarding'. Bumping does not apply in this case, because the passenger in question was already boarded, and therefore could not be denied his seat, as he was not acting abusively.
But don't take my word for it, this is directly from the US Department of Transportation:
> Can airlines involuntarily bump me after I have boarded the flight?
> Generally, no. If you have met the following conditions, airlines are not allowed to deny you permission to board, or remove you from the flight if you have already boarded the flight:
> You have checked-in for your flight before the check-in deadline set by the airlines; and
> A gate agent has accepted your paper boarding pass or electronically scanned your boarding pass and let you know that you may proceed to board.
> However, airlines may deny boarding or remove you from a flight even after accepting your boarding pass and informing you that you may proceed to board if the denial or removal is due to a safety, security, or health risk, or due to a behavior that is considered obscene, disruptive, or otherwise unlawful.
No, if you read the DOT website I linked to, you'll see your second point is not valid either.
The DOT explicitly states airlines are not allowed to deny you permission to board, or remove you from the flight if.... If you have already boarded the plan, or had your ticket scanned, and are not being unruly, airlines are literally not allowed to deplane you.
Trespass law is not within DOTs regulatory purview. It is possible for a request from an airline to be legal under one set of laws but illegal under another. Airports are both under federal and state law. Which may conflict at times.
By that logic a stranger could get into my car if it is parked in the street, since it is a private vehicle parked on the governments property. This seems counterintuitive.
But the vehicle is not parked in a public space it's parked on private property that is owned by the government. If someone is in a vehicle on someones property then it's the property owner not the vehicle owner were trespassing laws apply to.
The Airline is as much a guest in an airport as the passenger is.
He paid for a seat reservation, not the plane. You have no right to disobey orders in the same way you don’t have a right to fly the plane. There is no ambiguity here.
He paid for the flight, was checked in, allowed into the plane and didn't provide any reason himself for being thrown out. The people who escalated the situation were the airline staff and airport staff. Huge difference.
> If a hotel denies your booking for whatever reason, would you just stay in the lobby anyway?
The equivalent analogy would be: you paid for and were situated in your hotel room, when you receive notice from the hotel that they have overbooked their hotel and that hotel staff from another hotel need to stay in your room and you must evacuate your room immediately. When you refuse to do so, they have security slam your head into the bedframe, resulting in you breaking your teeth, and then leave you outside on the curb.
Is your problem with the degree of force used? If so then I agree with you. And the case itself was decided that way by people qualified and informed of all the facts.
In the case of the hotel example there is also another issue: a hotel is a lodging.
Throwing someone out in the street with a proper reason is not entirely legal in most jurisdictions, at least not in mine. Proper reasons include disruption, property damage, violating the rules, committing crimes, being intoxicated, not having paid, being past the leave date, etc.
In this case, the reason is "hotel staff from another hotel need to stay in your room", which is not grounds for expelling anyone.
Even when hotels make mistakes and overbook they can't throw out guests that are already accepted and accommodated. Hotels even go the extra mile of directing the additional guests to other hotels and foot the bill.
That's not the law. When someone "asks" you to leave a place you have a legal right to be, and you refuse their request, you do not automatically become guilty of trespassing or fair game for violence. Lots of confusion in this thread between a civil request and a lawful order.
When someone asks you to leave their property, that means you no longer have a legal right to be there. The correct thing to do is leave and resolve your dispute with the airline in court.
I think you should in fact be allowed to physically throw someone out of your house/business that refuses to leave, without having to wait for the police. Avoiding this is easy, just get up and go.
"If the hotel tells you to leave, you have to leave"
Morally? Legally? In order to not get beaten up? For the first two, I disagree. For the last one, perhaps but it might be worth the bad publicity for them and the lawsuit money.
"It's bullshit if they hurt you while forcing you to leave, but it seems like you've contributed somewhat to the situation you find yourself in when you leave them no choice but to physically remove you."
I don't want to be rude but one could use the same argument to justify horrible acts such as violence during sexual assault.
Well maybe it should? Perhaps we should prevent airlines from overselling and forcing people off? You've sold the seat. Thats a dine deal. You can negotiate to buy it back sure but I can decline any or all offers.
It's not unreasonable to expect them to plan ahead better. Perhaps they need to have more jumpseats, or force them to displace the highest paying customer first to discourage that kind of planning.
There are many more humane options available when we realize we should be in control of the rules governing their operations, if only this whole shitstorm wasnt massively corrupt.
No. Any business should be able to refuse service for any reason. Refusing to leave private property is trespassing. The right thing to do is leave and resolve your dispute over airfare in court.
They did intend to offer it when it was sold. Even in this scenario it was well understood that the added United employees were last minute. This is even more cut and dry not fraud than regular overbooking that results in a shortage purely from customer sales.
Then that's still United's own fault for not planning their employee shuttling properly.
They're an airline, get another plane, maybe even a charter if their employees' travel is important enough for them to justify brutalizing their paying customers.
You may not like it (and I don't either), but overselling flights is not fraud; it's a normal, accepted, legal practice.
If he had followed the rules and done what he was -- legally -- told to do, he wouldn't have to have become a "victim". That doesn't justify what security did to him, but he's the one who started the escalation.
Telling a paying passenger who is not behaving belligerently in any way that they must vacate their seat so that an airline staff member can fly in that seat is what starts the escalation.
That’s not escalation, it’s them asserting their property rights. They will receive monetary punishment from the FAA if they don’t pay the required compensation but you have no right as a passenger to refuse to leave a seat.
No, they say that I am right. “Generally, no” is not “no”. You’ll notice that statement has no teeth or specifics. That entire guideline was added in reaction to this particular event and the general populist stupidity that resulted.
> Generally, no. If you have met the following conditions, airlines are not allowed to deny you permission to board, or remove you from the flight if you have already boarded the flight:
You have checked-in for your flight before the check-in deadline set by the airlines; and
A gate agent has accepted your paper boarding pass or electronically scanned your boarding pass and let you know that you may proceed to board
That is pretty clear, so you can stop making up stuff for the sake of an invalid argument.
Why stop at just savagely beating the man then? Stands to reason he should be locked up indefinitely in an ASO holding cell so that he can't cause any more trouble at a later time, yeah? That'll cost a lot of money though, why not just a bullet in his head?
His injuries are unfortunate but it's bound to happen when force is applied. This is a highly regulated and security sensitive mode of transport so there's even less leeway in case of someone refusing to move.
Once he's off the plane, then the issue is resolved. Why would they lock him up after that? What's with the extremes and what does it have to do with any of this?
It's highly regulated because the airlines like it that way. For example, the whole "only the person named on the ticket may fly on it and you can't sell it to someone else yourself". That came in after 9/11 because the airlines loved that they could charge fees and not allow people to sell their tickets.
The stated "requirement" was so that they could know who was travelling, but for international travel, that's covered by your passport, and for local travel, by your local ID (driver license etc). Having your "name" on your ticket is just bullshit.
As for the "security sensitive" it's actually "security theatre" that has been in place since 9/11.
Excusing the behavior of the airline is ridiculous. They didn't need to drag this person off the plane, they needed to offer enough to the passengers until enough had accepted their offer so that they could deadhead their staff. That is what is supposed to happen when they need to offload passengers.
I'm not talking about how regulations happened; only that they increase the tension in the environment and procedures involved.
I'm not talking about how effective the security practices are; only that they exist and result in much faster and more forceful action.
I didn't excuse their behavior; I agree that it was poorly chosen and should be criticized.
What I'm explaining is that they can lawfully (at that time ) cancel a ticket and remove a passenger at their will; regardless of how they were chosen or whether it was a good idea. What happened after is a series of escalations that is standard procedure with countless other examples where force was proportional and effective without ending in a scandal.
> Why would they lock him up after that? What's with the extremes and what does that have to do with any of this?
The point is that you don't see beating and dragging a man as 'extreme', so I am postulating other extremes like indefinite incarceration or execution which it would then likewise stand to reason are warranted because what if this man, a known troublemaker now, ever tries to get on a plane again? Incarceration and execution would preempt that problem.
I disagree that he was outright "beaten" but yes, he was physically removed and the force required caused injuries.
If he left voluntarily then there would be no force. If he started attacking others then there would be more force and more injuries. The response was proportionate and even lax considering he was allowed to run back on to the aircraft.
How would you remove him? What is your actual issue here?
You must be joking if you think it takes knocking an unarmed passenger unconscious, giving them a concussion, and breaking their nose to get them off a plane.
This isn't just my hearsay. The Chicago City Inspector's Office ruled that the action violated the City's personnel rules, 2 of the officers were discharged, the other 2 disciplined.
When did I say I think that? I also disagree with the degree of force and overall strategy, but that's orthogonal to the issue that force was ultimately necessary and applied.
The airline staff shouldn't have removed him. They should have given up and made increasing large offers of travel vouchers until someone accepted, or they should have found an alternative way to get their staff to Louisville.
At no point should the airline ever have even considered forcibly removing someone so that their staff could fly instead. No matter what happened, the paying customer should have been the priority.
Defending the actions of the airline makes me think you should never run a business.
The staff didn't. They called the police. It doesn't matter how poorly the decision was made, but once decided to remove a passenger than that passenger needs to comply or be removed.
It's no different than you deciding that you no longer want a guest in your house (for whatever reason) and calling the police when they refuse to leave.
"but once decided to remove a passenger than that passenger needs to comply or be removed"
I do not get this type of argument at all. "once decided to take the victim's money then the victim needs to either comply or have the money physically removed from their possession" uses the same logic.
You seem to be assuming that what the airline did was lawful and what he did was unlawful. There is plenty of evidence that shows that this was not the case. Regardless though, something being lawful or unlawful does not imply that it is also moral or immoral. What is an authority for someone is a criminal for another (see certain regimes). Regardless, I am sure that we can agree that the airline is not an authority under the law.
Anyway, you have made 25 flamewar comments in this thread. Posters that do that are usually banned so I would advice you to stop. (just a friendly advice)
It was lawful. The case is already resolved and it was the degree of force and how it was used that became the problem. Morality was never part of this discussion.
> "What is an authority for someone is a criminal for another (see certain regimes)"
What does this have to do with air travel? This person isn't fighting tyranny, they're being asked to leave a plane. The authority is the same for everyone that participates in that state, airport and aircraft.
> "the airline is not an authority under the law"
No, but it can call authorities just like you can call the police when required. Also airports and aircraft do operate under different rules for security.
> "you have made 25 flamewar comments in this thread"
My comments are not "flamewar" because you disagree with them. I've always posted civilly in the face of very harsh and rude replies and will continue the discussion as long as I want. I advise you leave the moderation to the admins here.
Generally, I think a plane, bus, or hotel are private property, like your house. Regardless of existing business arrangements, you should be able to deny service and ask patrons to leave your property at any time for any reason. Failure to comply with such a request is trespassing, and justifies forced removal. This action may well be a breach of contract, and that matter should be resolved in civil court, but that doesn't mean a business shouldn't be entitled to take it.
> you should be able to deny service and ask patrons to leave your property at any time for any reason
Nope, not "at any time" or for "any reason". Air companies are subject to several regulations, and another person posted it here: after boarding there are pretty specific reasons for why you can expel someone, and "because I say so" is not one. Not to mention that planes fly so you obviously can't "surprise deny" service at "any time".
At hotels you also can't throw people out on the street in the middle of the night, unless they did something wrong. Which is clearly not the case.
You also cannot throw out tenants without reason and without proper proceedings, for example.
Airlines are granted licenses to use of public property (airport gates and airspace itself). Therefore their allowable actions should be limited to those in the public interest.
Again... People seem to be making their own rules for a stitation that the DOT already calls out
>Generally, no. If you have met the following conditions, airlines are not allowed to deny you permission to board, or remove you from the flight if you have already boarded the flight:
You have checked-in for your flight before the check-in deadline set by the airlines; and
A gate agent has accepted your paper boarding pass or electronically scanned your boarding pass and let you know that you may proceed to board
> "On January 13, 2021, the United States Department of Transportation amended its rules, forbidding involuntarily bumping from an overbooked flight after boarding starting on April 21."
I think the crux of the issue is that "force" isn't binary. People think you can "force" someone off your premises without injuring them to such an extent.
Is your position that it would not have been possible to remove him (even without his cooperation) without injuring him to this extent?
I don't know. It's easy to criticize after the fact on an online forum, especially by many who have never been in physical confrontations and seem to have an expectation that they'll never be harmed no matter how they behave.
The security staff is charged with removing someone from an aircraft, without knowing their intentions, who's already acting strange by refusing to leave in the first place, and acting in limited space with lots of other people around. They could've done a better job, but it also could've been much worse.
It's easy to criticize, because it was a bullshit response by both the airline staff and the security staff.
They needed the seats to move their staff operationally. To do that, they needed some passengers to volunteer to not fly. To do so, they needed to offer incentives, not demands.
The airline's problem is that they didn't want to pay enough. So they used force, not only that, they used public security (police) to enforce a private contractual matter (not providing travel, even though the passenger was in complete contractual compliance).
The security staff were briefed, and if not, should have waited until they were. He wasn't "acting strange", he was upset at not travelling as he had paid for, and wasn't been offered a reasonable alternative.
Excusing this behavior is allowing it to continue.
The airline should be able to ask any passenger to vacate its property at any time for any reason, just like any other business. Passengers should not have to volunteer. Refusing to comply with this request is trespassing and justifies removal by force. This may well be a breach of contract, and that should be resolved post factum, in civil court, like every other business dispute.
You don't have to guess or use your imagination. You can find videos of even more unruly people getting forcibly removed from premises without such severe injuries. Here's one of a passenger getting forcibly removed (and I'm not even claiming it was all that great): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2CR_zuzNwg
I would also suggest considering that e.g. bus drivers face noncompliant passengers (non-paying, even!) far more frequently, and they have pretty good peaceful means of dealing with them.
Sure, like I said sometimes it goes better, and sometimes it's worse.
Clearly it was adjudicated that it was excessive in this United instance by people qualified and knowledgeable of all the factors but that doesn't override that fundamental point that when force is used then injuries are possible and probable.
> but that doesn't override that fundamental point that when force is used then injuries are possible and probable.
Sure it does. Because force isn't binary, which circles us back directly to where I made this point above. Your logic only makes sense if you treat "force" as binary.
I already answered your question about the degree of force in that I don't know, and that "people qualified and knowledgeable of all the factors" have already decided for this particular instance that it was excessive.
> It's easy to criticize after the fact on an online forum, especially by many who have never been in physical confrontations and seem to have an expectation that they'll never be harmed no matter how they behave.
Now you're just using ad hominem to make your point.
> "On January 13, 2021, the United States Department of Transportation amended its rules, forbidding involuntarily bumping from an overbooked flight after boarding starting on April 21."
Reconsider whether your mindless deference to authority has any limiting principle. If someone sells lemonade on the street without a license, should force be applied and injuries sustained? What is this strange refusal to accept consequences?
It's called proportionate response. Leave voluntarily without issue, or create more havoc and a bigger force will be applied. The limiting principle is your own resistance to authority.
I mean, the dude created more havoc and United’s disproportionate response netted him a few million dollars instead of a $250 voucher, so I think I’d say it worked out ok.
Yes it is, he paid for the seat and has every right to be there. If he was unruly, sure. But he wasn’t - he held up his end of the bargain, and had every right to expect the airline to hold up their end.
Except that paying for a seat doesn't actually give you the right to be there. I'm sure none of us have fully read the contract of carriage. But you can certainly pay for a seat but be denied that seat. It's not great, and I wish customers had more power in this situation to be able to negotiate a better contract, but... that's where we are.
I don’t disagree, but if the flight crew tells you to get off the plane, you get off the plane. You can argue about it with the airline’s corporate team. You’re not going to win a fight with the flight crew, nor should you expect to. Make a best effort attempt to make your case (politely and with decorum), and if they still boot you, you’ll have to seek recourse post event.
Funny thing that public. Everyone thinks everyone else sees it their way. You can always pick out the authoritarians in the room, because they are usually the only ones without doubt "the public" will be on their side.
I’m an extremely laissez-faire person, but we’re talking about publicly-bailed out airlines operating out of publicly-funded airports begging for publicly-maintained law enforcement. I think you might misunderstand who’s trying and failing to invoke “the public” here.
Last I checked, TSA was nearly universally despised, airlines in particular are dubiously popular, and aside from the ATF and FCC, I see more griping about the tyrannical tendencies of the FAA by those subject to it's capriciousness, no matter how well justified one may think it to be.
Point being, I'd refrain from making assimptions on the "Public's" behalf, when it's more "a bunch of bureaucrats" dictating things.
They’re just begging the government for power they won’t be granted. If they were actually independent like Greyhound or Uber, this wouldn’t be a story, the passengers would already be banned.
Is the airline staff that caused this in the first place due to their lack of professionalism required to accept consequences?
Are they responsible for their actions that caused an innocent person to suffer both the physical and other injuries for something that he was not responsible?
Stop excusing this nonsense. The force applied was unnecessary, excessive, and unjustified.
Just like the German soldiers running concentration camps during WW2 right? Rules are rules, doesn’t matter if the majority of people disagree with them.
You keep posting this, but the rules were changed after this incident:
> "On January 13, 2021, the United States Department of Transportation amended its rules, forbidding involuntarily bumping from an overbooked flight after boarding starting on April 21."
Sure, it's not a "request". You don't need to follow it. Then it gets escalated from a civil contract matter to private property and state security matter, at which point you'll start getting orders.
All this happened because they were trying to avoid a mild inconvenience for the airline staff.
Whatever rights an airline has in this specific situation, it does not entitle or justify that they inflict any violence on others. Even if this violence is done by airline staff, airport security or even the police, it's still not justified.
Instead of picking on specific passengers and escalating it to violence, they should have kept asking other people. Maybe even give up boarding four staff. Even giving up would still be a mild inconvenience.
Violence should never be a way to solve mild inconveniences. The airline was completely in the wrong for allowing it to escalate, even if law allows them to do it.
The plane is private property if the company tells you to get off, you have to get off and settle it in court later, there is nothing else you can reasonably do. I do hope he got a nice settlement out of the overreaction, though. However, if you're in my house, my private residence, and I tell you to GTFO out then you have to comply, it's the law, just like on the planes.
A more accurate analogy would be if someone sold me a ticket to swim in their pool, then as soon as I show up and start swimming in their pool (having already paid for the ticket to swim), they say "actually my brother wants to swim" and call the cops when I don't want to leave because I haven't got the swim I paid for yet.
Except that's still not a good analogy because that involves the personal property of a discrete individual, not the somewhat public service vehicle of a faceless corporation. We shouldn't allow corporations to run roughshod over the little man. Just because civil suits exist as a potential route for renumeration doesn't mean we should allow this behavior from airlines in the first place.
I don’t think it’s that simple though. Airlines are almost a public conveyance; they sold him a ticket and he would have gone to some lengths based on that reasonable expectation. People coming to your house don’t have that expectation.
Yeah the analogies aren't useful. The actual laws about air travel are though. Airlines can legally bump you from a flight. There are laws about what kind of compensation you are due if this happens.
That said, the rule seems to be that once you've boarded, they need specific reasons (behavior, safety, etc.) to remove you from the flight. In this instance, it sounds as if the airline fucked up.
Actually, you do have a right to fly on a private service once they've let you board. This wasn't the case yet in 2017, but the TICKETS Act clearly states:
> if the gate agent accepts a passenger for boarding after collecting or scanning the passenger’s boarding pass, the carrier is prohibited from removing the passenger from the flight thereafter.
You most definitely do have the right to fly on a private service... if they voluntarily offered you a ticket, you accepted the offer, paid them, and were even allowed aboard to boot.
If United rented out their house to two tenants, they can't just drag one of them out by the ears? It's on them for being two-timing fraudsters.
It’s not that simple. This was a crew being sent to operate another plane. If they can’t move the crew, that could potentially cancel several other flights, and affect hundreds of other passengers.
What does that have to do with it? We all have important reasons we just absolutely have to be on that particular flight, but we're not entitled to be there.
I would have been incredibly annoyed had I been in his position... but I would have sucked it up and gotten off the plane, not acted like an entitled child, clinging to my seat. Should he have been hurt the way he was? No, of course not. But, c'mon, it's ridiculous to suggest that he wasn't in the wrong at all here. He was given a lawful order to vacate the plane, and refused. That's not "had done nothing wrong". Quite the opposite.
If I was Dr. Dao, I would have been pissed as hell. But I also would have gotten off the plane. Because this HAS happened to me before - previous flight was cancelled, then got on standby on the next flight, there was a no show, so I was sitting in my seat for at least 5 minutes before the no show showed up and they made me get off the plane.
The Dr. refused a lawful (if highly fucking annoying) request, and then when they tried to force ably remove him, he started screaming. He was not "beaten" or "physically attacked".
> Dao was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries including a broken nose, loss of two front teeth, sinus injuries and "a significant concussion"
What phrasing would you prefer be used instead to describe the sustaining of said injuries?
So I guess his injuries were self-inflicted? How does one sustain injuries if not physcially attacked? If someone places their hands on another, that's assault which according to dictionaries means physical attack.
The request was not lawful according to the rules. You shouldn’t have gotten off. Once you are in the seat you have a right to stay there, according to the department of transportation. You got taken advantage of.
How about...to not physically attack a paying customer who had done nothing wrong (and had medical patients to see, to boot) so that a bunch of airline staff could fly for free?