As the title says. Police and anyone else abusing their power.
Archived posts:
You might want to listen to this at some point while reading this thread in the future.
https://youtu.be/9jOqOlETcRU
Doctor buys a ticket on a plane. Plane is overbooked by the airlines. Airline randomly choose him as needing to get off the plane. Guards or police come on board, try to force him off not sure if they even reasoned and as he seems to be old, knocked him out and dragged him off the plane.
To save re-typing:
Iād also like to point out that the flight in question (United 3411) was probably operated by Republic Airlines and not United. Many of the major, legacy airlines in the US donāt fly their shorter routes and instead subcontract it out to several āregionalā airlines that operate planes under the same names and branding as the big boys. Republic certainly deserves at least as much blame for what went down as United.
Oh, and FWIW, Delta and American also contract with Republic for their regional flights.
Is there a valid reason airlines overbook? Seems pretty shitty that that guy bought a ticket and now doesnāt get to go where he was going to go.
Math.
estimated number of people who miss the flight * their ticket cost > estimated number of overbooked people * cost to reimburse
Hotels do the same thing. The biggest problem is when their match clashes with modern culture/events.
Example: nerd conventions.
Flights to Boston, and hotels IN Boston, for the first PAX East were basically completely booked solid. The expected rate of no-shows and cancellations was x, but the actual rate for PAX was around 0%. Thus, they fucked over a lot of people trying to get to PAX (voucher doesnāt help you if you miss the thing you were flying for in the first place), and they fucked over a lot of people who made it to PAX (sorry, there arenāt hotels).
Nowadays, most of the people flying regionally donāt have a lot of money or vacation time, so their travel is tightly scripted. They canāt afford to reschedule. Further, they donāt fly enough to be able to use a voucher, so itās basically worthless to them.
OK, that makes sense, still sucks, but that makes sense from a business standpoint.
It makes flights cheaper and more environmentally friendly by using fewer planes to move the same number of people. If they used proper incentives to give up your seat (cash money) then it generally wouldnāt be a problem.
The morality and business viability of overbooking as a practice aside, the CEO of united said theyāre reaching out to this guy. I damn well hope theyāre reaching out to his lawyer.
I also damn well hope he sues the police who forcefully ejected him from his seat. Heād have to get around qualified immunity, but given that qualified immunity only buys you the ability to use āreasonable forceā: I really think he has a case. The force used here was unreasonable by anyone whoās seen the footage, thankfully captured from multiple angles. Iām leaning towards a judge agreeing.
Thereās a good case to be made that we live in too litigious a society but this is a time where that fact could actually help this gentleman.
United CEO defends employees, blames passenger.
What a piece of shit.
EDIT: Also, United may be in breach of contract.
[quote=āKate_Monster, post:13, topic:632, full:trueā]
From what I am reading, while that is a factor, it is the regulations regarding overbooking that are coming into play/scrutiny.
[/quote]As well they should. Overbooking rules in the US are utter bullshit. Not to mention passenger and employee protections lag behind other countries by a fair ways.
Ah, yeah I heard that story about the potential for a church getting their own private police.
Honestly I think thatās not the real story. It took the barest minimum of research to learn that this isnāt unprecedented in alabama. Several schools and businesses either have or have the legal ability to make their own police.
This is just an extension of something they already have. I think the real story is that a few schools and businesses already have their own private police. It reminds me of the recent supreme court case Expressions Hair Design v. Schneiderman where Justic Kagan took one look at the law and how it was being applied and said (more or less) āby my reading the plaintiff and the defendant are both wrong even about the stuff they agree onā.
I disagree with the idea that anyone but government itself can be trusted to have its own police. Arguably government canāt be trusted either. But thatās a different discussion (Iām not an anarchist).
The Hacidm in Brooklyn already have their own police.