It was NOT an overbooked flight - lawyer explains

[Pluvious]

Too many ppl are confused by United's spinning, including the Governor of New Jersey...

A self-described lawyer explains the details on a post in Reddit...

Lawyer here. This myth that passengers don't have rights needs to go away, ASAP. You are dead wrong when saying that United legally kicked him off the plane.
First of all, it's airline spin to call this an overbooking. The statutory provision granting them the ability to deny boarding is about "OVERSALES", specifically defines as booking more reserved confirmed seats than there are available. This is not what happened. They did not overbook the flight; they had a fully booked flight, and not only did everyone already have a reserved confirmed seat, they were all sitting in them. The law allowing them to denying boarding in the event of an oversale does not apply.

Even if it did apply, the law is unambiguously clear that airlines have to give preference to everyone with reserved confirmed seats when choosing to involuntarily deny boarding. They have to always choose the solution that will affect the least amount of reserved confirmed seats. This rule is straightforward, and United makes very clear in their own contract of carriage that employees of their own or of other carriers may be denied boarding without compensation because they do not have reserved confirmed seats. On its face, it's clear that what they did was illegal-- they gave preference to their employees over people who had reserved confirmed seats, in violation of 14 CFR 250.2a.

Furthermore, even if you try and twist this into a legal application of 250.2a and say that United had the right to deny him boarding in the event of an overbooking; they did NOT have the right to kick him off the plane. Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you've boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn't have been targeted. He's going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.

https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/64m8lg/why_is_rvideos_just_filled_with_united_related/dg3xvja/?context=3

[asiliveandbreathe]

1. There you have it...UA can twist and turn and churn - discredit the victim, oh my -

See you in court UA...big - huge mistake...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. The whole thing seemed seriously messed up

and not at all what I understood to be the rules for employee deadheading when I worked for an airline (not United). There might be some rare occasion when you got a "positive space" seat (a reserved seat, not standby) for a work-related trip, but that would always have been arranged well in advance, and it would never result in kicking off a passenger who'd bought a ticket. Normally, we had to fly standby even if it was work-related. Commuting crew members fly standby, not on positive space; you are responsible for getting to your base and the airline won't buy you a positive space ticket to get you there (they like to discourage commuting).

I did see many instances of passengers being offered compensation when a flight was oversold (or overweight), but I never, ever saw anyone actually removed from a flight involuntarily. United really screwed the pooch this time.

[bagelsforbreakfast]

3. Hope all the DU United Airlines Apologists read this... n/m

[IronLionZion]

4. United needs to be punished financially and legally so hard

that they serve as an example to other airlines and companies about what happens when you abuse people with shameless corporate thug abuse. They've had enough chances and this cannot go unpunished.

DU's thug abuse apologists are not worth anyone's time. It's no point arguing with them. People showed up in support of Disney when the child was eaten by an alligator too and they vehemently opposed any posting of warning signs.

The real battle is in the courts and public opinion. That's where real change can happen to their industry processes and training. Or even to laws and regulation over the airline industry.

[FBaggins]

5. Lawyers should know better

They review a document and just assume that they know what the words mean without a full analysis.

Non-lawyer here... but (s)he needs to read more carefully.

JetBlue never overbooks a flight... but that doesn't mean that they never find themselves having to bump passengers. When an A321 needs unexpected service and they have to replace it with an A320 because it's the only equipment available... roughly 50 ticketed passengers are going to get bumped (and yes... this can happen after the plane boards if that's when they find the problem). They have "more reserved confirmed seats than there are available".

What happens when your favorite airline discovers at the gate that one row of four seats has broken or otherwise can't be used? Once again, they have "more reserved confirmed seats than there are available."... because the number of seats "available" is not a fixed constant. Again... this can certainly happen after all of the passengers have boarded the aircraft.

If they have four "must carry" crew - then the aircraft now has four fewer "available" seats for ticketed passengers.

The issue here was never that the airline had no right to take someone off the flight once his butt hit the seat... it was the use of excessive force by law enforcement and the lack of any problem-solving skills among the staff that had to clear four seats for must-carry staff.

[pnwmom]

8. Lawyers know how to read contracts. The ticket is a contract and this lawyer is correct.

United Airlines, under the terms of its own contract, didn't have the right to remove the passenger from his seat.

[FBaggins]

9. That's nonsense

In every case, there are lawyers on both sides... it makes no sense to point at one and say "he's a lawyer... he knows how to read contracts".

Try applying that analysis to the scenarios that I gave. On what basis would removed passengers be compensated for being unable to fly?

[pnwmom]

10. There was no lawyer involved in deciding to eject him from the airplane.

And if you have seen a lawyer justify the ejection, based on the language of the contract, please provide a link.

Here is a law professor at George Washington who says neither of the two rules cited by United, Rule 21 and Rule 25, apply to the doctor's removal.

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/united-cites-wrong-rule-for-illegally-de-boarding-passenger/

United’s Rule 25, as its title clearly implies, applies only to denied boarding. Thus, it uses the word “denied boarding,” and variants such as “deny boarding,” but says nothing about requiring passengers who have already boarded to give up their seats.

Indeed, it states in part, using the word “boarding” twice, that: “other passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily in accordance with UA’s boarding priority.

Clearly, a “boarding priority” does not include or imply an involuntary removal or refusal of transport. Moreover, under well accepted contract law, any ambiguous term in a contract must be construed against – and in the way least favorable to – the party which drafted it.

SNIP

Rule 21 . . . which unlike the denied boarding rule does provide for removal “from the aircraft at any point,” lists some two dozen justifications including: unruly behavior, intoxication, inability to fit into one seat, medical problems or concerns, etc. But nowhere in the list of some two dozen reasons is there anything about over booking, the need to free up seats, the need for seats to accommodate crew members to be used on a different flight etc.

SNIP

Finally, it appears that United is seeking to blame the passenger, claiming that when asked to give up his seat, he acted belligerently – and citing a rule which requires that passengers obey the orders of the flight crew. But, such a requirement applies only to orders which are lawful.

[FBaggins]

11. Dodging the question?

JetBlue has an A321 sitting at the gate that develops an engine problem and must be replaced after all of the passengers have boarded. All they have is an A320 available, so 50 people will not be flying today.

Based on your interpretation of the contract... what happens?

[pnwmom]

12. That situation IS specifically provided for in the contract.

When a smaller plane has to be substituted, the airline doesn't have to compensate passengers for being bumped -- according to th contract.

But that has nothing to do with this case, which is why I hadn't bothered with answering before.

[FBaggins]

13. Read it again

It is specifically provided for under the involuntarily denied boarding section.

Your reading of the COC is that it's too late to deny them boarding once they're already on the plane.

Care to try again?

[pnwmom]

14. Those passengers are being involuntarily denied boarding to the new smaller plane

that they haven't entered yet. That situation isn't comparable.

[FBaggins]

16. Sorry... nope

How does the airline get them off of the first plane? "I'm holding a ticket for this flight on this aircraft... I'm going to sit right here and insist that you fulfill your end of the deal!". Under your reading, the airline has no authority to get anyone off of the plane once their rear ends hit the seats... since it doesn't fall under Rule 21.

Also - the other example was a seating row that breaks after everyone is one the plane. Four people must get off... on what basis (within your reading of the contract) can that happen?

There's no getting around the fact that there are lots of legitimate reasons why some passengers would not be carried... that are inconsistent with your assumption that once your tuckus is cushioned, denial of boarding cannot occur. Just as courts prefer the plain understanding of words if no context is given, they also consider other implications of alternate readings.

There's little chance that they would interpret "denial of boarding" to be mooted by sitting down.

[Vilis Veritas]

38. This was not an emergency situation. No seat was broken. No plane was damaged.

They thought they would changes the rules.

apples v oranges

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

22. When you get off the A321 you are no longer boarded.

Every time that has happened to me everyone was issued a new boarding pass.

[FBaggins]

24. Right...your prior boarding has been denied

The question is how they get you if the plane under the claimed interpretation. Apparently nothing in the contract allows them to get you off until the plane lands at your destination.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

25. Who in their right mind is going to sit on a broken airplane?

[bora13]

37. bingo

[dalton99a]

44. +1

[DanTex]

19. There were no safety considerations here.

There's a huge difference between bumping people because the plane is unsafe to fly versus bumping people because the airline wants to move some of its people to a different location.

I'm not a lawyer either, but I can only imagine that whatever rules govern "ordinary" bumping, there are going to be exceptions when it comes to the safety of the aircraft.

And this is not even a case of overbooking. What happened here was that UA wanted to move some of its crew to another airport for its own business reasons. Those crew were not "must carry", and the airline could have transported all ticketed passengers if it wanted to. It decided to inconvenience passengers instead of inconveniencing itself.

The other thing is, if UA was willing to spend enough money, they could have avoided this whole thing. One option, for example, is to charter a private flight for those crew members. Or charter another private flight from another airport to get other crew members there. Or even offering people $50K to voluntarily give up their seats. I mean, if it were really critical to have those crew members transported, $200K is nothing to a company the size of UA.

But they didn't do that. In effect, they kicked four people off the plane because it was profitable for them.

Is that legal? I have no idea. Maybe there is fine print saying that they can kick anyone off the plane for whatever reason.

But the analogy with the safety problems is off base.

[FBaggins]

20. There don't have to be

There are any number of reasons why a seat could become unusable. Perhaps something is spilled. Maybe something breaks in the galley that would keep the meal service from occurring. Maybe a delay means that the current flight crew is unable to go and the replacement crew is only qualified on other equipment (or that plane can no longer take that route because it can't be back at the current airport in time for morning flights the next day).

The examples here are endless... but the point is unchanged. The interpretation that once you're on the plane the airline no longer has the ability to deny boarding and is stuck with you - has implications far beyond this one passenger. There are tens of thousands of involuntary boarding denials every year and they don't all happen at the gate before you get on the plane.

There's a huge difference between bumping people because the plane is unsafe to fly versus bumping people because the airline wants to move some of its people to a different location.

Apparently if you can't point to that in the contract it doesn't exist. There are no distinctions between "ordinary" bumpings and others.

And this is not even a case of overbooking.

Actually... it probably is. They didn't sell more tickets than seats on the flight (which would be the normal person's understanding of the term... so the airline clarified that this didn't happen) - but it does meet the definition in the contract and from the regulators. Overbooking occurs any time there are more tickets sold than available seats. Nothing says that the number of available seats can't change. That's what happens when smaller equipment has to replace larger ones. Suddenly they have an overbooked situation even though they didn't intentionally sell too many tickets.

What happened here was that UA wanted to move some of its crew to another airport for its own business reasons. Those crew were not "must carry"


You're making a claim without foundation. "It's own business reasons" is "must carry" if some other flight won't be able to fly if they don't get there. There has been lots of speculation about who they were (crew, maintenance, etc.) and whether they could have taken a cab... but we don't have anywhere near enough information to challenge the designation.

The other thing is, if UA was willing to spend enough money, they could have avoided this whole thing.

Of course! Most of the specific examples you gave aren't practical... but the airline could certainly just keep upping the price until someone took them up on the deal - and should have. If you think about it, that's the reverse of how they sell tickets in the first place. If a flight sells quickly, they're going to raise the price until the demand hits the supply (give or take).

[DanTex]

21. I don't see why that's true.

There's a clear distinction between a situation where a plane can't safely and legally take off unless someone is bumped, and a situation where the plane could take off without bumping anyone, but the airline chooses to bump the people anyway.

Apparently if you can't point to that in the contract it doesn't exist. There are no distinctions between "ordinary" bumpings and others.

Actually, yes, there's a whole section about removing people from a flight for safety reasons. As there should be. What I haven't seen anywhere, either in the UA contract or in the legal regulations, is anything indicating that an airline can bump someone for its own convenience/profit, even though they could fly all the ticketed passengers if they wanted to. Maybe it's in the fine print. But in those links, the bumping scenarios they are talking about deal mainly with safety and overbookings.

Actually... it probably is. They didn't sell more tickets than seats on the flight (which would be the normal person's understanding of the term... so the airline clarified that this didn't happen) - but it does meet the definition in the contract and from the regulators. Overbooking occurs any time there are more tickets sold than available seats. Nothing says that the number of available seats can't change. That's what happens when smaller equipment has to replace larger ones. Suddenly they have an overbooked situation even though they didn't intentionally sell too many tickets.

In this case the seats actually were available, by any reasonable definition of "available". If an airline can arbitrarily decide to declare some seats "unavailable" for whatever reason it wants, the whole concept becomes meaningless.

You're making a claim without foundation. "It's own business reasons" is "must carry" if some other flight won't be able to fly if they don't get there. There has been lots of speculation about who they were (crew, maintenance, etc.) and whether they could have taken a cab... but we don't have anywhere near enough information to challenge the designation

I don't see how the other flight makes this a "must carry" situation. Certainly not any more of a "must" than "the ticketed passengers on this flight must be transported to their destination". It would be a "must carry" situation if the extra crewmembers were needed for the safety of this particular flight, but that was not the case. The other flight is UA's business problem, not the problem of the people who had tickets for this flight.

Also, as you said, we don't have enough information to know whether or not the other flight would really have had to be delayed, and for how long, and whether UA had other ways of resolving this without kicking ticked passengers off the flight.

What we do know, without speculation, is that is that UA was in a jam and needed to move some crew members, and they decided to get out of that jam by kicking ticketed passengers off of a flight that was not overbooked.


Again, maybe this is all legal according to fine print, but it's certainly not the same as bumping people for either overbooking or for safety reasons.

[uponit7771]

27. +1. "The other flight is UA's business problem, not the problem of the people who had tickets..."

[FBaggins]

29. The people who had tickets are on both ends of the flight

The decision is between four people with tickets unable to fly... and hundreds (perhaps thousands).

"That's your problem buddy" is not a valid response.

[uponit7771]

26. You're right there are a myriad of reasons but the one UA gave was bullshit and they're not going

... to be able to defend that.

In this case they can't because of the reason THEY GAVE behind the justification to remove the passenger was straight up false, the plane wasn't overbooked.

The passenger didn't see the command as lawful looking at boarding rules (something he can easily claim) then UA says what?!

It was lawful given the boarding rules?

they'd get bent on that alone ...

[FBaggins]

28. Except that isn't true either

They didn't sell more tickets than seats that were on the plane - which is what everyone assumes is the definition of overbooked.

The problem is that this isn't the definition. Once they had four must-carry crew, they had four fewer available seats for ticketed passengers and were now oversold. That's the same thing as replacing a plane with smaller equipment or something breaking onboard forcing their available seat number to fall. They may not have sold too many tickets, but once they have fewer available seats than ticketed passengers, they're oversold - and yes, that can occur after the plane boards.

The passenger didn't see the command as lawful looking at boarding rules

That isn't in the slightest bit relevant (even if it were true, which we both know it isn't). That would give him the ability to sue after the fact, it wouldn't give him some sort of stand-your-ground defense.

[tavalon]

32. Factually correct

But in the court of public opinion, they are losing. And that is what matters.

[FBaggins]

36. Agreed

Their piece of this will almost certainly be settled - because a relatively easy court win would cost more than the settlement.

[kcr]

46. That's an entirely different scenario.

This wasn't a broken airplane. Planes weren't switched. Your scenario isn't applicable.

[lark]

6. I'd love to see him own the company and fire the president and all the security people involved.

$ of money for the heinous way he was treated plus the ability to fire the jerks and hire people that actually care about their customers. That would be perfect. Of course, perfect rarely happens, so as long as he gets a boatload of $$, I'm OK with that.

[flying-skeleton]

7. I usually abhor anyone taking corporations for millions .... BUT

IN this case .... I hope Dr. Dao takes United to the cleaners !!

[Meowmee]

15. Agree

This was not an overbooked flight. They would need to offer 5000 to ask people to leave- this should have been done before boarding. This situation could have been handled properly in many other ways. This is the fault of the airline- they broke the law and a crime has been committed. They will settle for a lot but it won't repair the damage done to their reputation. Time to overhaul all the airline "laws" anyway. The CEO only apologized when they started losing money. Boycott and hit the pocketbook. That's the only thing that works.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

23. Clearly the airline acted badly

However, have you ever flown commercial?
Offer 5000 to ask people to leave.... 5000 what? nickels, frequent flyer miles, free meals at the waffle house....
AFAIK the airline did not manhandle the passenger, they called the police.

Too often when I fly, I feel like I ought to moo because I'm treated like cattle. Yes airline laws and passenger rights need to visited and updated.

[tavalon]

33. They have limits to what they can offer

They didn't reach their limit. But that's not what this is about.

[TNLib]

17. I really hope this is true and he takes them to the cleaners

It's troubling to think legally they can just throw you off the plane after pre-purchasing a ticket, let alone beat you if you don't comply.

I hope the other passengers that were asked to leave sue as well.

[rocktivity]

18. "Including the Governor Of New Jersey?"

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7155524

Stick to feeling sorry for opioid addicts, Governor Soprano!


rocktivity

[Cha]

30. That was my understanding.. in spite of so many "overbooked"

[WhiteTara]

31. especially if he can prove libel nt

[tavalon]

34. Yeah, the libel is a lagnappe.

Stupid move. Will cost United plenty.

[WhiteTara]

39. What a great word!

[tavalon]

40. I don't get to use it much in the real world

But, there it was. How could I not?

[WhiteTara]

45. I'm looking for all kinds of ways

to use it! Thanks for my new word!

[tblue37]

42. I believe that is spelled "lagniappe," though. nt

[tavalon]

43. See what happens when you never get to use a word! A special word, in fact the best word!

You're right. Blasted spell checker didn't catch it.

[BlueMTexpat]

35. Too many people just do NOT

seem to "get" this. At least one of them is on this thread.

Their contract of carriage highlights there is a complete difference in rights after you've boarded and sat on the plane, and Rule 21 goes over the specific scenarios where you could get kicked off. NONE of them apply here. He did absolutely nothing wrong and shouldn't have been targeted. He's going to leave with a hefty settlement after this fiasco.

[Azathoth]

41. This "lawyer" sounds like an idiot

The regulation refers to "oversales," "oversold flights," and, in a later paragraph, "overbooked flights." These terms aren't defined in the reg, so the lawyer is simply stating his personal opinion. United would no doubt argue different, probably by claiming that seats necessary to move airline personnel are operational overhead and thus effectively reduce the number of ticket-able seats on a given flight (the same way moving equipment and airline supplies reduces the amount of space for luggage). You would need a court and/or jury to decide that question.

This guy also likes to jump back and forth between the regs and United's contract of carriage, which are two completely different things. I'm not going to read through the whole contract, but given his somewhat tendentious reading of the reg, I doubt his representation of what is in the contract is any more trustworthy. Right off the bat, I can envision a judge asking "Well, what would happen if the flight unambiguously had been oversold and the agent had mistakenly let two passengers sold the same seat board and sit down. Are they now in a Catch-22 where they can't remove either one?" The judge would probably hold that "Rule 21" doesn't apply when you are dealing with a passenger who was mistakenly boarded.

Lastly, it needs to be said that this entire argument hinges on what is, essentially, a loophole: that the passenger was being bumped for airline employees rather than for some other class of passenger. This is a technical distinction that is only apparent after closely reading the statute and the contract of carriage; unless this passenger happened to be an expert on DOT regs AND was aware at the time that he was being bumped for airline employees, he still acted wrongfully. It's like jaywalking at random and, when you get caught, looking down and realizing you were accidentally standing in a crosswalk.

[kcr]

47. How did this passenger act wrongfully?

And how is refusing to give up a seat you paid for, a seat you are sitting in because you've been allowed to board, like jaywalking?

[randome]

49. Because he bought a ticket for passage, not a seat and plane-specific ticket.

Flights get canceled all the time, even after someone's butt hits a seat. That doesn't mean everyone gets to sue the airline.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[stevenleser]

48. I'm very curious to see where this goes legally. I have no idea if this self described lawyer is

right.

My dream would be to get to see this litigated in court to see what the actual truth is in terms of what the contract for passage actually means and what an Airlines responsibility is. I actually think that would be a positive thing. Unfortunately I think the chances of that are slim. United is going to pay to make this suit go away and they are going to do it quickly IMHO.