Bride, groom booted off United Airlines flight

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Bride, groom booted off United Airlines flight

10:15 AM Monday Apr 17, 2017


A bride and groom headed for their wedding in Costa Rica have been booted off a United Airlines flight.

NBC reports the incident happened on Saturday, local time, on United Airlines flight 1737, from Houston, Texas to Liberia, Costa Rica.

The incident comes in the same week a doctor was violently dragged off a United Airlines flight in Chicago.

According to the groom Michael Hohl, he and his fiancee Amber Maxwell discovered people sleeping in their allocated seats when they boarded the plane, after a layover at George Bush Intercontinental airport after departing Salt Lake City.

Read more: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11839603

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Michael Hohl, Amber Maxwell

[Warpy]

1. Somebody's not telling the truth here

and it would be interesting to hear what other passengers have to say about it.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

2. Agree

[cstanleytech]

3. Agreed. nt

[Honeycombe8]

23. The news report I heard was that the 2 people booted off were sitting in the wrong seats....

and refused to give them up. I think they were higher priced seats.

[Warpy]

26. Yeah, we might need to side with the airline on this one

dammit.

[Dammit Jim]

4. They should look on the Bright Side

At least United didn't boot them off the flight in mid-air!

[Ahpook]

5. Or kick their ass

[MiniMe]

6. Something very strange here.

First of all, the source is a New Zealand link and I have been unable to find anything on a regular news link. You would think this would be big news after the past week. Second, if they had tickets for other seats, why didn't the flight attendants ask the people in "their" seats to move? It doesn't pass the smell test.

[dalton99a]

7. You might want to try:

http://www.khou.com/news/local/bride-and-groom-booted-off-united-flight-in-houston/431644313

[MiniMe]

8. Thanks for the link

I think I'd like to hear from the other passengers around them on what happened

[dalton99a]

9. Agree. No one else has come forward

granted the flight was only half full

[JHB]

10. On the other hand, how many of them even know?

As noted above, it hasn't exactly gone viral, and I would presume that most of the passengers on that flight are going about their business in Costa Rica.

Who would come forward if they don't know anyone might be interested in what happened on the plane in Houston?

[RobinA]

12. Half Full?

HALF FULL? How do I find one of these half full flights??? Every time I fly the plane it is packed.

[paleotn]

20. Same here

I've not found a half empty flight in ages. The last I can remember was a red eye from Portland to the east coast back in the mid 90s.

[Xolodno]

22. That reminds me...

While dating my wife in a long distance relationship, I would take the red eye as the plane would be pretty empty, buy a shot and to sleep I would go.

After we were married, it was a number of years before we took a flight. So on a trip to Orlando, decided to take the red eye....good lord, if I had known it was going to be that packed, I would had said screw the red eye and paid the extra 40 bucks. The red eye appealed to me because how empty and quiet the plane was...no point to it now. Just want to scream at people, seriously, don't just look for the cheapest fare, sometimes that extra $20 is well worth it.

[IronLionZion]

14. MSN has it through Reuters

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/united-air-removes-engaged-couple-traveling-to-wedding-from-plane/ar-BBzUNSd?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

I've been in similar situations where just one person screws up by sitting in the wrong seat, then another person has to sit in the wrong seat and so on until someone makes an issue out of it. Or if people traveling together are assigned to sit apart but would like to switch so they can sit together.

I feel like there's more to the story. There are ways to resolve seating issues without having the US Marshals throw them off the plane like the wild west.

[Honeycombe8]

24. I saw it on regular news. 2 people booted off for stealing seats they didn't pay for. nt

[cab67]

11. This sounds off.

Had I been caught in the wrong seat like this couple, the first thing I'd have done is explain why - at which point the flight attendants would almost certainly have moved everyone back to their assigned seats.

This is actually something that annoys me when I travel - people who sit in my seat and just assume I'll be happy with it. "I want to sit with my [partner/relative], but we weren't seated together. Can you just take my seat?" It's invariably a middle seat toward the back of the plane.

[LisaM]

27. Yeah, I got stuck between a couple with a two-year old.

I didn't book till a few weeks ahead, and there weren't any aisle seats left, so I took a middle seat. The couple shows up with their almost two-year old, clearly having booked the aisle and window hoping that the middle would be empty. Then they asked me to move to the window so they could sit together! As if I would agree to be trapped by the window for five hours when they had a small child - what if she fell asleep and I had to get out? Anyway, a bit off topic, but it just reminded me (I told them I'd move to the aisle, not the window, and they grudgingly agreed).

[cab67]

30. They, at least, asked after you'd been seated.

More than once, I've gotten to my seat to find someone already there. Last time it happened, I declined to accept their seat - it was toward the back, and I had a tight connection. They looked at me as though I was raised with no manners whatsoever.

[LisaM]

31. Yes, that would be worse.

I travel alone a lot, and I've found that a lot of people treat me like a peg to be moved around.

[oberliner]

13. This story is BS

Looks like these two are trying to take advantage of what happened last week for their own purposes. And the clickbait media is more than happy to run with it (amplified by social media).

If someone is in your seat when you board, you say "excuse me, I think you are in my seat" or you get a flight attendant. You don't just re-seat yourself in a more expensive row. Also, I highly doubt that an air marshall asked these two to leave if they simply returned to their assigned seats when instructed to do so. Doesn't pass the smell test.

[Honeycombe8]

25. The story I read said they sat in higher priced seats. Not that someone had taken THEIR seats.

So maybe they're puffing their story, after the fact.

[Bengus81]

15. Like to hear from someone else on that flight.......

Kinda funny though if they were telling the truth about the guy laying across their seats then why did the FA keep telling them to return to those seats when they couldn't set in them?? It's not a paying customers job to play butler or maid to sleeping passengers and wake them up and escort them to their correct seat.

I think the truth is somewhere in between all of this.

[LisaM]

28. Yes, that part sounded quite strange.

Why wouldn't they ask for the sleeping people to be removed?

[B2G]

16. They repeatedly tried to self-upgrade

in different seats. That's why they were kicked off.

[brooklynite]

17. Here's what happened...

They had economy seats, and moved up to economy PLUS seats, which look the same but have more legroom and cost more.

[randome]

18. I dunno, they look like they were tased to me.

Actually, sounds like there was no 'napper' except in their imagination to justify their wanting better seats and trying to get away with it.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"Everybody is just on their feet screaming 'Kill Kill Kill'! This is -hockey- Conservative values!"
-Slap Shot (1977)[/center][/font][hr]

[Floyd R. Turbo]

19. Guy shouldn't be expected to know where his seat is, hell he doesn't even know the

from the back of his ball cap!

[Sunlei]

21. airlinelayovers suck, all some people do is sit in the bars and get loaded.

[louis-t]

29. It's Chumley, right?

From Pawn Stars?

[struggle4progress]

32. ... United spokeswoman, Maggie Schmerin, said in a statement that the passengers

“repeatedly attempted” to sit in upgraded seating they didn’t pay for and did not follow instructions from crews to go back to their assigned seats. The two were then asked to leave the plane, she said ...

Hohl’s account .. is quite different ...

Schmerin, the United spokeswoman, said the airline asked the couple if they wanted to pay the difference in fare, but that they declined. United offered them a discounted rate at a hotel for Saturday night and rebooked them for a Sunday morning flight ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/04/17/united-booted-a-couple-traveling-to-their-wedding-just-days-after-public-relations-fiasco/?utm_term=.94cb99ed0a80