United Airlines staff violently pulled an Asian passenger from his seat and down the aisle.
United Airlines called the police after a seated passenger declined to leave a flight to Louisville, Ky. Officers violently pulled him from his window seat and then down the aisle as passengers yelled at them to stop. A recording of the incident posted on social media sent people into an apoplectic rage over the carrier's heavy-handed response.
The swift social media condemnation was because the man wasn't being ejected for misbehavior or a security threat. It was because United overbooked the flight, its staff chose him, and he didn't want to get bumped.
Video posted to Facebook and Twitter showed the man being dragged out of his seat and down the aisle of Flight 3411 Sunday night. He was reportedly a doctor who said he had to be in Louisville Monday for work and would not relinquish his seat, according to a Twitter account by a passenger who said he was on the flight.
"After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate," United said Sunday night. "We apologize for the overbook situation." The flight from Chicago O'Hare International Airport arrived at 10:01 p.m., almost two hours late "due to operational difficulties," according to United's website.
On Monday, United Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz apologized for "having to re-accommodate these customers." In an emailed statement, he said the airline is conducting a review and seeks to resolve the matter with the man who was dragged off the airplane.
The incident demonstrates how airline bumping can veer into confrontation. Carriers around the world routinely oversell their flights because it's a rational response to a mundane situation that occurs daily: People don't always appear for a flight they've purchased. Overselling is a way to cover that situation, while maximizing the airline's revenue.
United should have increased the compensation offered to passengers to entice volunteers, CFRA Research analyst Jim Corridore wrote in a client note Monday. "We think this situation was handled in a deplorable fashion, but note that United has the right to refuse boarding to any passenger for any reason," he said, adding that "demand for UAL flights are unlikely to be affected by this poor customer service incident."
The incident comes two weeks after United drew social media scorn for enforcing its dress code for those who fly as nonrevenue passengers. A girl flying from Denver was told to change her leggings before boarding. In response, the airline then took efforts to tell "our regular customers" that "leggings are welcome."
In its contract of carriage, United Continental Holdings Inc. says it chooses those to be bumped based on a fare class, an itinerary, status in its frequent flyer program, "and the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment."
That means those who paid more for a ticket and those who fly the airline frequently are less likely to be selected as an involuntary bump, criteria that are not unique to the Chicago-based carrier.
Volunteers are paid for their seat and booked on another flight. But if there are not enough volunteers, an airline resorts to the involuntary method . And when it goes wrong, it can get very ugly. That's one reason at least two U.S. airlines-JetBlue Airways Corp. and Virgin America-don't do it.
Last year, the 12 largest U.S. airlines bumped slightly more than 40,600 of 659.7 million passengers, for a rate of 0.62 per 10,000 passengers, down from 0.73 per 10,000 in 2015, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
In 99 percent of cases, the benefits vastly outweigh the risks to the airline. The ultimate goal is to fill every seat on every flight, preferably in the order of who paid the most. Travelers flying on the lowest fares are those who also tend to volunteer their seats for compensation, while customers who pay the most-usually business travelers-can't be tempted out of their seats.
Overbooking pays off, too: Airlines almost always make more from the extra fares than they give back to volunteers in future-travel vouchers. When an airline can't find enough volunteers-"involuntary denied boarding," as regulators call it-the cost can run as high as $1,300 cash per passenger under revised rules adopted in 2011.
Yet because airlines have amassed years of detailed data on passenger no-shows-down to days, times, seasons, and specific routes-they only rarely need to write customers fat checks. The data also help them to know how to tweak their oversales for each flight, part of the complex algorithms that power revenue-management systems, the backbone of fare pricing. As a result, bumping has decreased over the past decade and is likely to dip further over time.
Another factor weighs on the involuntary bumping issue: seat supply. Airlines that have rapidly dumped 50-seat jets in recent years aren't adopting large mainline jets in response but turning to regional jets with 70-100 seats. The Embraer SA regional jet used on the April 9 flight to Louisville has 70 seats and is flown by Republic Airways Holdings Inc.
The supply constraints have been great for boosting ticket yields but can prove detrimental when it comes to oversales. That's one of the lessons United may be seeing in the aftermath of the dragged-passenger episode.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
The swift social media condemnation was because the man wasn't being ejected for misbehavior or a security threat. It was because United overbooked the flight, its staff chose him, and he didn't want to get bumped.
Video posted to Facebook and Twitter showed the man being dragged out of his seat and down the aisle of Flight 3411 Sunday night. He was reportedly a doctor who said he had to be in Louisville Monday for work and would not relinquish his seat, according to a Twitter account by a passenger who said he was on the flight.
"After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate," United said Sunday night. "We apologize for the overbook situation." The flight from Chicago O'Hare International Airport arrived at 10:01 p.m., almost two hours late "due to operational difficulties," according to United's website.
On Monday, United Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz apologized for "having to re-accommodate these customers." In an emailed statement, he said the airline is conducting a review and seeks to resolve the matter with the man who was dragged off the airplane.
The incident demonstrates how airline bumping can veer into confrontation. Carriers around the world routinely oversell their flights because it's a rational response to a mundane situation that occurs daily: People don't always appear for a flight they've purchased. Overselling is a way to cover that situation, while maximizing the airline's revenue.
United should have increased the compensation offered to passengers to entice volunteers, CFRA Research analyst Jim Corridore wrote in a client note Monday. "We think this situation was handled in a deplorable fashion, but note that United has the right to refuse boarding to any passenger for any reason," he said, adding that "demand for UAL flights are unlikely to be affected by this poor customer service incident."
The incident comes two weeks after United drew social media scorn for enforcing its dress code for those who fly as nonrevenue passengers. A girl flying from Denver was told to change her leggings before boarding. In response, the airline then took efforts to tell "our regular customers" that "leggings are welcome."
In its contract of carriage, United Continental Holdings Inc. says it chooses those to be bumped based on a fare class, an itinerary, status in its frequent flyer program, "and the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment."
That means those who paid more for a ticket and those who fly the airline frequently are less likely to be selected as an involuntary bump, criteria that are not unique to the Chicago-based carrier.
Volunteers are paid for their seat and booked on another flight. But if there are not enough volunteers, an airline resorts to the involuntary method . And when it goes wrong, it can get very ugly. That's one reason at least two U.S. airlines-JetBlue Airways Corp. and Virgin America-don't do it.
Last year, the 12 largest U.S. airlines bumped slightly more than 40,600 of 659.7 million passengers, for a rate of 0.62 per 10,000 passengers, down from 0.73 per 10,000 in 2015, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
In 99 percent of cases, the benefits vastly outweigh the risks to the airline. The ultimate goal is to fill every seat on every flight, preferably in the order of who paid the most. Travelers flying on the lowest fares are those who also tend to volunteer their seats for compensation, while customers who pay the most-usually business travelers-can't be tempted out of their seats.
Overbooking pays off, too: Airlines almost always make more from the extra fares than they give back to volunteers in future-travel vouchers. When an airline can't find enough volunteers-"involuntary denied boarding," as regulators call it-the cost can run as high as $1,300 cash per passenger under revised rules adopted in 2011.
Yet because airlines have amassed years of detailed data on passenger no-shows-down to days, times, seasons, and specific routes-they only rarely need to write customers fat checks. The data also help them to know how to tweak their oversales for each flight, part of the complex algorithms that power revenue-management systems, the backbone of fare pricing. As a result, bumping has decreased over the past decade and is likely to dip further over time.
Another factor weighs on the involuntary bumping issue: seat supply. Airlines that have rapidly dumped 50-seat jets in recent years aren't adopting large mainline jets in response but turning to regional jets with 70-100 seats. The Embraer SA regional jet used on the April 9 flight to Louisville has 70 seats and is flown by Republic Airways Holdings Inc.
The supply constraints have been great for boosting ticket yields but can prove detrimental when it comes to oversales. That's one of the lessons United may be seeing in the aftermath of the dragged-passenger episode.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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