The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

What a shit storm this has created.   United is in big trouble financially as a result of this. 

It is not all bad news for United.

http://www.duffelblog.com/2017/04/pentagon-awards-contract-united-airlines-forcibly-remove-assad/

Chris Christe has called on Trump to ban the overbooking of flights. 

Trump who tweets non stop has yet to condemn United for the handling of this.  Yuge mistake.  And I mean YUGE.  If there is one issue that unites Democrats and Republicans it is that airlines should treat overbooked passengers better. 

Trump actually has a legitimate chance to find common ground with Ralph Nader and Bernie Sanders and has gone silent. 

Banning the overbooking of flights is like requiring all flights to have economy plus legroom or mandating at least two free checked bags.

The reason why flights are as cheap as they are is because of practices like nickel-and-diming and overbooking.  And for all the bluster that people make about leg room and bag fees and overbooking, when they have an opportunity to take an airline without those practices, they pass because tickets are cheaper through Delta etc.

No overbooking flights is different than the rest.  It would be like the Dolphins selling 70,000 tickets then hoping 5000 people don't show up.  And more do those not allowed in get a ticket to a future game. 

Simple proposal: airlines can sell as many tickets as they have seats, and sell "standby" tickets to customers based on anticipated extra space which are boarded last and know they have a good chance of not flying. 

When airlines started the practice of overbooking it was back when customers could get refunds for tickets not used or chance flights with little or no penalty, so customers created a decent number of empty seats. If airlines sell non refundable tickets, they should be fully guaranteed.

Hey Pappy, you guys at southwest having fun?

Aren't most tickets non refundable these days? If that's the case, why does the airline care if the customer shows up or not?

They are double dipping.  Have 100 seats sell 110 tickets.  If 99people show up they get paid for 110 fares and 11 people lose their money.  106 people show up.  The 4 no show doesn't get a refund, 6 people do, but they still make money on 104 people rather than the 100 they would have if they didn't overbook.  Never mind that someone misses out on attending a friends wedding or an important meeting -- that doesn't matter to the airline.

it's corporate douchebaggery and therefore Trump will continue to be silent about it cause  we live in the corporate states of america.

To be fair, there are federal regulations that say that if you are taken off a plane due to overbooking, you must be put on another flight that lands within 1 hour of your original arrival time or you are entitled to compensation (above and beyond any potential ticket refund).

If your replacement flight lands more than 1 hour (but less than 2) after the original arrival time, you are entitled to 2x the original one-way ticket price ($up to $650)... in cash, not vouchers.
If your replacement flight lands more than 2 hours after the original arrival time, you are entitled to 4x the original one-way ticket price (up to $1300)... again, in cash.

This was part of the reason people were mad at United: their offers of $400 and $800 were lowballs.

Well let's just say that we are not crying for United.  >:D

But the thing is that in this case the flight was NOT overbooked. United needed to get a flight crew to an A/C without a flight crew. If they don't make room for the crew on this A/C than an entire A/C full of people somewhere else is going to be kicked off their A/C. It was a bad situation and United handled it poorly, but all the passengers on that flight were also to blame. Anyone of those people on the flight could have said "I'll take the $800, you can have my seat", but nope they all sat there and watched it happen and got their camera's out. This could have been avoided if there was just 1 decent person on the flight. Unfortunately that wasn't the case.

How is $800 lowballing you? Your ticket will be refunded or applied to another flight, the $800 goes straight into your pocket. You're assuming that the 1 way ticket was at least $325? Please.

Most tickets are refundable up to a certain point...at least at Southwest. And the reason that there's a point is because people were booking flights and then cancelling them when they found a cheaper flight on another airline. Airlines were even booking flights on other airlines so that it would appear the flight was full to force people to book on their airline and then cancel. Lot's of really bad things happen when you allow people to cancel their flight all the way up to the time the flight leaves. At some point you have to lock people into their flight to prevent them from playing games.

$1300 is the federal maximum for required reimbursement, which is not a restriction on the upper limit of what United may offer.  Obviously no one on board was willing to reschedule their plans for $800, and United made the (incorrect) decision that physically forcing a passenger off the plane was a better choice than simply increasing the payoff until you had a taker.

As you correctly pointed out, this was not a plain-old overbooking; there was no crew in Louisville to man a flight.  Therefore, these passengers were being inconvenienced to resolve an internal United personnel issue.  United should have been more willing to take a loss.

And this kind of haughty indifference is exactly why United is scrambling to perform damage control right now.

Based on your response, it appears that the idea that "if you won't take $800 to scuttle your travel plans, you are not a decent person" is not an uncommon viewpoint in the airline industry.  To the rest of us, such a position is utter insanity.

Side Note:  It annoys me that the headlines state a "doctor" was dragged off the plane, as if it should make a difference that this guy was a doctor; that he is some how more entitled to be treated better.  What it if it was an accountant, or a computer programmer, or a mechanic?  Or on the hand, what if it was a young black male that was traveling home from college on spring break, I can only imagine the headlines.  And as it turns out this guy has some questionable medical practices.  Overall this was just handled poorly, the check in people never should have let everyone board the plane when there weren't seats for everyone.

Taking $800 to scuttle my travel plans and allow a doctor to meet his commitments and to provide a flight crew the opportunity to allow an entire A/C full of people to continue their travel plans is not an uncommon viewpoint for many outside the airline industry. I don't fly a lot and I've only been offered the chance to give up my seat once and I seriously considered it and that was just because the flight was overbooked. Under these circumstances I'd like to believe that I would have done it. Despite what you think Spider this happens all the time and many people are actually grateful for the extra $800 in their pocket and often are able to catch a later flight that day and just be a little inconvenienced. I'm actually a little shocked that no one took them up on the offer. No doubt that United was a little surprised as well based on their poor handling of the situation although this exact situation is exceedingly rare, most of the time people are just not allowed to board the A/C rather than having to actually remove them from the A/C after they have boarded so maybe United was just a bit unprepared for it. I think the situation could have been avoided by telling everyone that the flight would be delayed until someone gave up their seat. Eventually someone would have caved.

The chances of that happening are pretty small. The airlines don't use a random drawing. The system actually selects people based on several criteria like whether or not you are travelling alone, have a connecting flight, your final destination, your age, etc. Senior citizens and under 25 would likely not be chosen. As you pointed out profession is not one of the criteria although the airlines would likely have no way of knowing that anyway.

I rarely travel by air, but I have to wonder if some of the more "seasoned" passengers on the flight were holding out for the airline to make a better offer, because they have seen it happen before.  Probably ten years ago I was catching a connecting flight home and they asked for volunteers, and me and some family volunteered, as it was only going to be an extra three hours, for free tickets in the future.  They slowly added some of the volunteers to the flight (it turns out it was a weight issue because it was a small regional plane), I was the last let on the plane and they had to kick some other guy off because he was flying standby.  The flight crew wanted to let the guy stay, but the office kicked him off in place of me, because they didn't have to give him any perks because he was flying standby.

Years ago a friend of mine volunteered 6 flights in a row.  He was suppose to catch a Wednesday morning flight didn't get home until after everyone else was done eating on Thanksgiving, he got a decent mix of travel vouchers and cash, he said he got better at negotiating better deals on the later ones. He used the four round trip tickets he got on spring break working out a deal that he would provide the plane tickets if the other three friends split the cost of the hotel.

You claimed that not volunteering to give up your seat for $800 means that you are not a decent person.  I'm sure there were many decent people on that flight who also had good reasons for not wanting to delay their travel.

Furthermore, you are falsely framing the choice as preventing an entire plane of people from continuing their plans, when in reality United could have chosen to simply increase the payoff until they had a taker.  The choice was actually about preserving United's profit margin, nothing more and nothing less.  Given that their best offer was still well below the federal limit, United obviously had room to continue sweetening the pot.

Actually I merely claimed that there wasn't a single decent person on the flight. I'll admit that was a poor choice of words. I should have said there wasn't a single person willing to do the decent thing and give up their seat. You're right that doesn't mean that they're not decent people. Thanks for clarifying.

Just for fun I looked up the price of a 1 way ticket from O'Hare to Louisville Ky on United and depending upon when you purchased the ticket it would run you around $200 so the $800 was approximately 4X the 1 way fare, which is what the federal regulations say you are entitled to if delayed more than 2 hours. That was in no way a lowball price, that was a fair and reasonable offer. Yes I'm sure that United could have increased it if they wanted to, but I don't think they were simply being cheap. They made a fair offer and no one took it for whatever reason. Unfortunately United then decided to take a different approach. That was a mistake. The $800 offer for someone to give up their seat was not.

Turns out different airlines have different philosophies regarding bumping.  United views it as a cost to be minimized they ask for volunteers and offer less than they would have to pay if they bumped someone.  Spending more than the government mandated amount is a waste of money. Avoiding wasting money is important to being profitable.

Delta on the other hand recognizes that people who volunteer are typically thrilled with the experience and those who are invollentarily bumped are extremely pissed.  Keeping  customers happy is important to being profitable so if it requires offering a few hundred dollars more to have happy volunteer rather than a pissed off customer than that is money well spent.

Sounds like Pappy is defending the United method of doing business and Spider is advocating the Delta method.  I don't know which approach Southwest uses.  But I do know if I have a choice between United and Delta I am going to fly Delta.

United's stock dropped $255 million in value over this incident.  So how many successful instances of offering exactly what is required by federal regulations - no more, no less* - do you need to offset $255 million dollars?

*I say "no less," but they actually did open with a lowball offer of half of what is required, so...

Two different values.  Real question is does tha savings offset the loss in future sales.  The stock value drop suggests investors don't think so.

And actually they didn't offer half the federal min.  Federal min is lesser of 1250 or 4x.  And airlines are allowed to select the passengers that paid the lowest fare to bump.

I'm defending their right to do business as they see fit. They did the appropriate thing in offering $400 initially and then $800 for someone to give up their seat and then picking 4 people after that. They did not do the appropriate thing by forcebly removing someone from the aircraft who refused. I think the appropriate thing to do would have been to tell everyone the aircraft wasn't going to leave until someone gave up their seat and waited it out. I think under those circumstances someone would have given up their seat, or at the very least the crowd would have turned against the holdout doc and I think they ALL would have wanted him off the aircraft at that point.

I don't really think they have an approach, but I think it's pretty rare that we actually bump a paying customer off a flight. The reason I said paying customer is that non rev do get bumped all the time, but that's to be expected, they aren't paying customers. If you got a ticket chances are that you aren't getting bumped and I think that's true for the airline industry as a whole. Unusual circumstances do come up from time to time which is what happened to United.

Here's the real problem. I didn't know this was United's policy. Apparently they simply had a flight crew check in late after the aircraft had already been boarded. I don't know what's Southwest's policy on this, but like I said I think it's extremely rare to remove someone after they have already boarded, at least not to give his seat to a crew member.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/04/15/heres-one-thing-united-will-do-differently-after-the-infamous-fiasco-involving-dragged-passenger/?utm_term=.f25f0b436da1

In order for this course of action to work, the airline would have to publicly identify the doctor as the reason why the plane isn't leaving.  What you are advocating sounds a whole lot like, "Instead of getting the cops involved, why don't we let the people solve the problem themselves?"  If this doctor wasn't willing to get off the plane when uniformed police officers physically dragged him off, what exactly are you proposing will be different if the rest of the passengers are angry at him and there are no cops?

Once again: the airline's best offer was still $500 short of the federal limit, and you're already willing to implement mob intimidation?  This vision of Mad Max Airlines is bizarre.

If Spider's right about the Federal Limits, which I assume he is as no one has challenged it, I don't think United had the right to be forcibly dragging anyone off the plane unless they had.  It seems to me if this is the case, then the FAA should be levying some heavy fines against United for doing so.

Turns out that Hoodie only has part of the story as to why Delta's customers are a lot happier with their overbooking experience.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/how-delta-masters-the-game-of-overbooking-flights/

"Delta started this practice back in 2011, and it works like this: When passengers on overbooked flights check in online or at the check-in kiosk, they’re asked what the dollar value of the travel voucher they would accept as compensation for volunteering their seats. They give you a hint, too — “Delta accepts lower bids first.” By the time you reach the gate, the gate attendants already have a list of passengers to call up to confirm they’ll fly standby. If your bid is low enough, you’ll be on that list.

By having customers compete against one another to give up their seats, Delta ensures it can just about always lock in the lowest possible payout. How low can you go? The ground is the limit."

So it turns out that with some planning and foresight, Delta not only avoids irate customers bumped against their will, but also saves money in the process.  This is a black eye on United corporate leadership.  Their raises this year might be slightly less massive!

So to summerize by using a little common sense.  Delta is able to often offer substantial less to fix the overbooked flights, but is willing to spend substantially more if that is what it will take to prevent pissed off customers.  Otoh, United has a system where up until a few days ago, they dont even know flights will be overbooked if they need to transport their OWN employees. 

On the topic of flights, Dolphins just got bumped by American Airlines.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/04/17/roughly-20-nfl-teams-facing-loss-of-chartered-flights/

I was always under the impression that the team had it's own plane.

Doesn't make much sense for a team to own an airplane.  You only have around 10 flights per year and year round maintenance on a plane that big is very expensive. A basketball team that travels much more often and requires a much smaller plane, it would make sense.  Many owners of NFL teams own planes that they use but are way too small for the whole team.

Apparently united has another tactic to save money if the need to involuntarily bump multiple people they will only formally bump one member of a party and than offer the others a lowball to volunteer.  Let's say the need 2 seats, they bump the wife but not the husband.  The wife they need to pay the legal amount they then offer the husband the option of flying with his wife on the later flight or they can fly separate.  If he CHOOSES to take the later flight he won't get any compensation.  Being they would rather stick together they almost always say yes, and the airline gets a two for the price of one. 

Pretty slimy. 

If you said the A/C can't leave until we have enough seats for the flight crew, it's obvious.

Just what you said, the passengers will be angry with the doctor and not with the airlines. I'm not suggesting physical confrontation, I'm just suggesting that you let the passengers focus their anger on the doctor who won't leave rather than on the cops trying to forceably remove him.

Let's talk a little more about the scenario you have suggested as an alternative to police involvement.  Ostensibly, the reason for United NOT to call the police is to avoid the bad optics of law enforcement forcibly removing a paying customer from the plane, right?  But in your alternative scenario, an angry mob (and the anger is explicitly intended) will be purposefully set upon this customer... with law enforcement INTENTIONALLY not being contacted.  Given that the passenger in this exact case we are already discussing had to be brutalized to be removed from the plane, it is highly unlikely that Smooth Talking (from angry people?) is going to produce a different result.  Therefore, we can expect one of two outcomes:

1) law enforcement has to be called to remove the passenger anyway
2) an angry mob physically assaults the passenger you have helpfully identified as The Sole Reason The Flight Is Delayed (and again, law enforcement is not present)

In short, you are advocating for Thunderdome... all because you think United offering, say, $500 more is just too far out of the realm of plausibility.  This is utter insanity.  Whatever bad optics result from police forcibly removing a paying customer from the plane will pale in comparison to the optics of a willfully-targeted mob beating an elderly doctor because he wanted to get home and treat his patients.

Pappy, your posts in this thread give the impression that this is part of a larger culture issue with airlines in general.  Your comments so far have, incredibly, been even worse than the picture United presented during this whole debacle.  You have shown little-to-no sympathy for the customer who merely expects the transportation he paid for, and honestly you have been outright disdainful.

You're assuming my intention is to have the doctor removed which it is not. The intention is to have someone give up their seat.

And the solution to that is to keep raising the offering price until someone says, yes it is worth $X dollars to miss the flight.

I agree with Spider, that your comments lack empathy for the flying public that simply expects the transportation they paid for.  This is consistent with my overall flying experience, airline employees seem to have the same level of regard for their paying customers as Comcast and the DMV.

As someone who just used a "low cost" airline this weekend I must say that I had no issues other than my flight being delayed an hour but I did not consider that a major problem.

But your solution is basically for the airline to say, "Well, this guy wouldn't leave the plane, so we're just going to go outside for 10 minutes, and when we come back in, if there's not 1 less person on this plane then we'll just keep going back out until you all handle the problem."  And your logic behind this absurdity is that no one would blame the airline anymore.

It's difficult to believe you think this is a reasonable alternative to simply offering more money.

I wouldn't say that's the only solution. That's one solution.

I empathize with them, I'm also a member of the flying public. I'm not an employee of Southwest, I'm a contractor for them, I have no flying privileges. I also understand that under a very small set of circumstances the flying public is delayed for one reason or another. If the delay is because they need to get someone to give up a seat, it happens. I'm not saying this should be employed at every turn, only that this could have been used in this situation with great effect in my opinion. It would have been FAR better than forceably removing the passenger.

This is patently untrue for Southwest. They care a great deal about their passengers and they often bend over backward to do the right thing for them. I have heard stories of what employees have done for customers and it's amazing. I have no way of knowing what United thinks of their customers but you couldn't be MORE offbase when it comes to Southwest. Here's a website for you. This is only the tip of the iceberg, I hear stories like these all the time.

https://www.southwestaircommunity.com/t5/Southwest-Stories/bg-p/stories

Spider I'm trying to have an honest discussion with you, but your constantly twisting what I'm saying is getting tiresome. I NEVER said that no one would blame the airline, I'm sure they will still be upset with them, but they won't be taking video of the doctor being forcebly removed from the A/C either. That immediately made United the bad guy and rightfully so. Letting everyone sit for awhile on the tarmac yeah, I think most of them would be sitting there wondering why this doctor shouldn't give up his seat rather than make us all sit here? The 3 other paying passengers obliged, what's so special about this guy? I have commitments too, why should I give up my seat for him? He's no longer the innocent person being dragged from the plane, he's now the guy that is forcing everyone to be late because he won't do the right thing and give up his seat. I wasn't suggesting that the passengers resolve the problem, merely that they recognize it's the doctor that's forcing the issue and not the other way around.

And you seem to believe that offering more money absolutely would have resolved the issue in short order. Actually to me it sounds a lot like the passengers were pretty dug in and were more interested in getting to their destination in short order than taking the money. It's quite possible that no one is going to give up their seat regardless of what you do, but the longer you are delayed the better that $800 starts to sound if you're not getting there on time anyway.

QED.

I'm going to bold some more parts in the following quote because you don't seem to realize that you are repeatedly implying a particular outcome:
You previously said that your intention was not for the doctor to be removed, but for "someone to give up their seat," yet in the scenario YOU PROPOSE in this passage, the other passengers are openly questioning why they should give up their seat.  Do you not see the contradiction here?  What, specifically, is gained from having the other passengers "recognize" that one person is holding up the flight?  How does that lead to "someone" giving up their seat?

Your proposed workaround is a VERY thinly-veiled appeal to mob intimidation and/or violence.  You repeatedly cite anger and discontentment as integral components to your solution.

Yes, I am inclined to believe that offering a group of people increasing sums of money is an effective way to get someone to accept said money.

But even if no one accepted: if United had offered, say, $2000, then people like me wouldn't have accused them of lowballing under the federal limit.  Had that been the case, I think you would have seen a lot fewer people criticizing United and a lot more people criticizing the cops.

Delta has raised their max to $9500.  If Delta ever kicks someone off a plane after offering that sum, (which will be rare) reaction will be of shock nobody took the offer.