Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves

Due to recent airline overbookings and delays, one airline is trying out the "Thunderdome" method of boarding.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JayseDavid/status/851223662976004096

As the story goes, this man had a ticket for his seat, but was "volunteered" to be bumped for an airline employee.

Man, airlines are fucking up lately. One could argue that the practice of overbooking caused this situation and made last week's situation so much worse than it should've been.

Edit: it shouldn't matter, but another part of the story is that this man is a doctor and was on his way to service patients. He wasn't some guy on vacation or just being difficult. For the record, they'd have had to drag me off the plane, too, and I'd follow up with some form of very public lawsuit if I could.

 

From what I understand, they needed 4 "volunteers" to make room for 4 employees. I understand the concept of overbooking, but these are employees, Id be bullshit too if I was bumped for an employee to fly.

 

Personally, I think overbooking should be stopped. I rarely get on a flight anymore where there aren't standbys from a delayed flight elsewhere or isn't already overbooked. If your business model is predicated on every single flight being full to the point that you're knocking out passengers and dragging them off planes, that's not a sustainable business model.

 

One of the biggest motivators to starting my own business for so I didn't have to fly anymore. Used to fly weekly if not multiple times a week, it sucked.

 

All Commercial Airlines need Vomit Comets (Small Aircraft) specifically for this reason... For their employees'

 

I don't read twitter but were the employees by chance a flight crew? I appreciate the importance of a doc getting back but a stranded flight crew fubars the entire system.

That said I consider flying just airborne grey hounds now. And anyone that has ever ridden the grey dog across a few states....

 

"I would own that fucking plane!"


Probably not, but kudos on the thread title.

 

Happened to me in Amsterdam in 2012... said the flight was full they'd put me in a hotel yada yada yada... I Asked to talk to a manager, showed them the ticket for a seat they sold me and if I wasn't on that flight shit was gonna hit the fan. I was on the flight.

 

I "think" they were ground crew, but I'm walking from gate to gate and can't get my phone browser to pull up. I think they were gate agents or maybe ground crew for the overflow in Louisville. Last week and this past weekend were screwed for flight travel. I was driving overnight from Milwaukee on Thursday, and when I went through Louisville at midnight, I counted 23 planes in line to land. Louisville. That's crazy.

 

Even with their own Runways you can thank UPS for that.... That's their Hub....

 

UPS planes probably

I flew out of Memphis in a little baron one night around 1am and was told to take off 18C and couldn't see shit because of all the lights and big ass fed ex planes coming in. Decided progressive taxi would be a smart option.

 

I didn't realize that... or that they had that many flights overnight. Surely that's not normal...

 

Sounds like flight crew, "four people needed to give up their seats to stand-by United employees that needed to be in Louisville on Monday for a flight"

Should be noted Chicago to Louisville is a 4.5 hour drive. All this could have been avoided with a rental car / limo for either the employees or passengers.

 

They have a break between 9PM and 4 AM if I am not mistaken.... I hear those damn 777's rattle my Dads windows everytime I go up there...

 

I find it very hard to believe that they would bump it paying passenger to make room for ground crew.
I've gotten bumped for paying passengers. Hate that shit. You get on the plane, buckle your seatbelt and start feeling safe. Then you recognize that look on the flight attendants face. Next thing you know, you're running to the other side of the airport to try to catch another plane. Good times.

Anyway, it absolutely sucks for that passenger. The feeling must be even worse when you're paying for your seat. The screaming wasn't very dignified, though.

 

All this is going to do is embolden other passengers. This guy will get a payout for sure. But the next time it happens, I'm betting either the airlines incentivize until it meets someone's price point, or it happens again and they go out kicking and screaming.

I've never had a seat yanked after I was in it, but have had a seat yanked before I could get to it. I raised hell and got something for my trouble. The airline should not benefit more than the customer when this stuff happens. It's their shit policies and planning that lead to things like this.

 

What happened to offering higher and higher incentives until they got volunteers to accept? Back in the day, we say $1000+ offers to get people off the plane. Now they just bump you?

 

The bribes work when bumping paying passengers in favor of other paying passengers. They get to decide how much it's worth of them to be on that airplane.
If they are repositioning a flight crew, someone is getting bumped off that airplane whether they want it or not. So the airline has less of an incentive to offer a good reward.

 

Air travel is exactly what consumers have demanded it become: cheap.

We did this to ourselves. You don't see first class passengers getting bumped.

 

What the hell does "cheap" have to do with it?

If United had half a brain in their heads they'd have shipped their overbooked flight crew standby on a different airline and not fucked themselves squarely in the ass of public opinion.