Did United or didn't they overbook? Posts and articles keep saying "They overbooked"

[raccoon]

but it sounds like that wasn't the problem. The plane was totally booked, and then United decided 4 of their employees needed to go somewhere, so they kicked some people off the plane.

[still_one]

1. Good question raccoon, I have seen both versions and have no idea. Regardless, the behavior was

unacceptable.

If they really wanted to remove people fairly, they choose a method such as the last people to buy tickets, would be the first to be selected.

I don't know if it happened, but the airline should have offered a large incentive for volunteers, at least 500 dollars. I suspect they didn't.

Of course if it was overbooking they should stop that practice

[raccoon]

3. I totally agree, either way it was unacceptable. nt

[exboyfil]

5. They were up to $800 in vouchers

and claimed the value was increased to $1000 in vouchers for the passengers selected. As far as I am concerned, I assign little value to the vouchers. Cash on the other hand would have cleared four seats quickly. You could easily see a group of two or four thinking of renting a car and making a road trip of it with lots of extra cash to have a good time. Otherwise you just would have another flight to suffer from.

[still_one]

7. I agree, vouchers are no good, they should have offerred cash. I know they used to do that

[pnwmom]

14. They offered $800 but they could have and should have offered more.

They would be required to pay up to $1325 for involuntary bumps, so it was wrong to force anyone to leave without offering to pay passengers that amount.

[exboyfil]

2. I wonder if both happened

I heard that it was overbooked and the four deadhead UA employees showed up for a ride. Possibly the pool for compensation acceptance had already been tapped to address the overbooking (possibly before the plane was filled). That might have been part of the reason that it was so hard to get additional passengers.

United Airlines should have sweetened the pot with actual cash until they got enough seats. Many people value the airline credit at zero because of the restrictions and lack of time or money to take advantage of it (this would be me for example).

[still_one]

6. There is no doubt in my mind if they would have offerred 500 dollars incentive, there would have

been takers, maybe less, like 250 dollars

[exboyfil]

8. I bet you are right

$2000 would go a long way towards renting a car and leaving lots of cash for some extra fun. Weather is good. You could get about as much sleep if you had a group of four as you could on the plane.

[pnwmom]

15. Most people don't realize that the regs allow them to demand payment in a check form. n/t

[exboyfil]

16. They will now

Thank you unnamed passenger.

[Solomon]

4. This is what I have been raving about. I don't think they were overbooked. They wanted the seats

for their own employees. Pisses me off that they keep saying overbooked.

Assholes

[Rhiannon12866]

9. What I don't understand about this whole debacle

Since this is an airline, don't they have other planes?? If getting these employees to another destination was such a priority, didn't they have other options, such as using another plane and a pilot, rather than inconveniencing and annoying paying customers/passengers??

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

17. I infer from what I read...

...that this crew was needed in Louisville to make another flight, maybe a flight back to O'Hare or maybe to another city like Dallas. It is apparently within the airlines purview to bump passengers to fly a crew as needed in order to not cancel another flight. Cancelling flights has cascading effects in terms of delays and interruptions.

Most airlines have their planes in the air as much as possible. When not flying, the planes are usually being serviced.

Airlines have crews located all over the country or probably all over the world. Many don't live in the cities in which they are based. There are FAA rules safety rules about how long crews can work without a break and how many hours in a day they can fly. If a crew in one city reaches or will reach its max, a crew from another is usually flown to replace them. The travel mishaps of last week invariably creates strains on the system.

From what I saw and read the cops were removing the man physically and became aggressive when he began physically resisting.

The airline's operations department will give the gate crew approval when to begin boarding. It seems to me to be bad business to unseat passengers who've already boarded. Perhaps calling police to remove people isn't the best first course when no one volunteers to get off.

[Rhiannon12866]

18. Thanks for all the information!

I can understand not wanting to waste resources and that it's normal protocol to place employees on existing flights. But if it was a near emergency and no seats were available, there must have been better options - at an airport. I didn't mean they should have fueled up a 747, LOL, just that there must be smaller planes and pilots - at an airport. But I can see that this was a routine situation that got way out of hand.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

20. agreed

And most emergencies are routine situations that get out of hand.

You're welcome

[HoneyBadger]

10. It appears to be more about being Chinese than anything

“He was kind of saying that he was being singled out because he’s a Chinese man” when speaking to the manager, who was African-American, Bridges said. “You should know what this is like,” the man said, according to Bridges. The AP was unable to confirm the passenger’s identity

[Cha]

11. Everybody says they were"overbooked" even Jimmy Kimmel.. but

it is my understanding that they had to move 4 crew members ASAP so they needed 4 empty seats after the passengers were seated.

And, they handled it horribly, imv..

United CEO says airline had to 're-accommodate' passenger, and people are having a riot

"This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers. Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with the authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened."

Link to tweet

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/10/united-ceo-says-airline-had-to-re-accommodate-passenger-and-twitter-is-having-a-riot.html

I actually teared up a little when I saw them dragging the Dr out.

[kcr]

12. I think overbooked is being used as shorthand for the fact they needed seats on a full plane.

It doesn't really matter because either way it wasn't an excuse for what they did. I don't understand the fuss over whether this is technically correct. Even when a plane is overbooked, every single passenger still bought tickets. In both scenarios, there are more people needing seats than there are seats. It's just semantics. The outrage is how they violently attacked this man.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

13. My understanding is...

...the flight was boarded when United announce they would bump 4 people to accommodate the crew that needed seats.

[Vinca]

19. They should have stuffed the employees onto the CEO's private jet and delivered them to their

destination that way. United is going to end up paying (and losing) a whole lot more money than that would have cost.