One more reason to take the train

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I've never understood this line of reasoning. No matter where you run the head bashing police state will follow you. They're operating under increasingly ruthless and vindictive societal norms and they're becoming mostly immune to serious life-altering repercussions. They couldn't care less if you scream or shout or photograph them or not. We've seen this before and deep down we know where it ends, but I guess acknowledging that reality is harder than pretending you can stop and prevent it simply by choosing a different transportation method. What a bizarre angle from which to post this story. This is neither the time nor the place to spin the story in order to plug travel on Amtrak.
 
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I think that was pretty terrible to drag a passenger off a flight because of overbooking. I would really hold that against UAL. Trump has cut funding for Amtrak, so what are we supposed to do to get from point A to B. I am retired now and take the train for pleasure and enjoyment. I guess that is over too.

We often gripe about Amtrak service and food, however, I have never, ever seen a PAX removed because of an overbooked train. I have seen people seated in the club car until seats are available. The airlines are really a terrible way to travel. UAL sounds like a snake pit.
 
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I think that was pretty terrible to drag a passenger off a flight because of overbooking. I would really hold that against UAL. Trump has cut funding for Amtrak, so what are we supposed to do to get from point A to B. I am retired now and take the train for pleasure and enjoyment. I guess that is over too.

We often gripe about Amtrak service and food, however, I have never, ever seen a PAX removed because of an overbooked train. I have seen people seated in the club car until seats are available. The airlines are really a terrible way to travel. UAL sounds like a snake pit.
They knocked him out cold. We could revoke UA's charter today and it wouldn't solve anything that's actually wrong with this video.
 
Just to clear things up here, the airline was actually Republic Airlines, United's commuter contractor. Yes I get it, if everything says United, then they are at fault, but I think it should be made clear that this was NOT United mainline.
 
I think that was pretty terrible to drag a passenger off a flight because of overbooking. I would really hold that against UAL. Trump has cut funding for Amtrak, so what are we supposed to do to get from point A to B. I am retired now and take the train for pleasure and enjoyment. I guess that is over too.
This is off-topic for this thread about the entirely self-inflicted stupid very bad PR day for United Airline, but President Trump has not cut any funding for Amtrak. His administration released a budget guideline proposing deep cuts, but it is up to Congress to determine what the annual funding levels are. The US government is running on continuing resolutions for Fiscal year 2017 (despite the small detail that we are > 6 months into the FY) and it appears that the final FY17 funding amounts will be about the same. My bet is that will also be true for FY2018 after a lot of noise.

As for the UAL incident, what was the heck were the gate staff, crew and law enforcement officers thinking? Me thinks someone is going to get fired for this. As they should.
 
Just to clear things up here, the airline was actually Republic Airlines, United's commuter contractor. Yes I get it, if everything says United, then they are at fault, but I think it should be made clear that this was NOT United mainline.
Since the flight was out of Chicago-O'Hare, it's probable that the gate agents working the flight were mainline United employees. (However, we don't know exactly how much of a role the gate agents played in the situation.)
 
I've never understood this line of reasoning. No matter where you run the head bashing police state will follow you. They're operating under increasingly ruthless and vindictive societal norms and they're becoming mostly immune to serious life-altering repercussions. They couldn't care less if you scream or shout or photograph them or not. We've seen this before and deep down we know where it ends, but I guess acknowledging that reality is harder than pretending you can stop and prevent it simply by choosing a different transportation method. What a bizarre angle from which to post this story. This is neither the time nor the place to spin the story in order to plug travel on Amtrak.
This was a blatant abuse of power which followed a chain reaction of stupidity on the part of the airline, staff, and policies (keeping in mind there is much we don't know), but in no way does it equate to a 'police state'. And while you are correct in that it is most certainly not an appropriate plug for rail transportation, it is also true that you actually can still avoid such excessive 'heavy handed' and uncalled for treatment by an alternate mode of transportation. The degree of security and expected strict compliance of air travel has not (ordinarily) found its way onto trains, buses, or your private automobile.

If the hyperbole is so great you call America a police state, what do you then call North Korea?
 
Just to clear things up here, the airline was actually Republic Airlines, United's commuter contractor. Yes I get it, if everything says United, then they are at fault, but I think it should be made clear that this was NOT United mainline.
United hired Republic to fly on United's behalf. United sells and represents Republic flights as if they were their own. Republic staff follow United rules and speak and act as though they work for United. In the court of public opinion this is a distinction without a difference. The more significant realization is that this event is by no means unique to any one airline. Today it's on United. Tomorrow it could be on American or Southwest.

I've never understood this line of reasoning. No matter where you run the head bashing police state will follow you. They're operating under increasingly ruthless and vindictive societal norms and they're becoming mostly immune to serious life-altering repercussions. They couldn't care less if you scream or shout or photograph them or not. We've seen this before and deep down we know where it ends, but I guess acknowledging that reality is harder than pretending you can stop and prevent it simply by choosing a different transportation method. What a bizarre angle from which to post this story. This is neither the time nor the place to spin the story in order to plug travel on Amtrak.
This was a blatant abuse of power which followed a chain reaction of stupidity on the part of the airline, staff, and policies (keeping in mind there is much we don't know), but in no way does it equate to a 'police state'. And while you are correct in that it is most certainly not an appropriate plug for rail transportation, it is also true that you actually can still avoid such excessive 'heavy handed' and uncalled for treatment by an alternate mode of transportation. The degree of security and expected strict compliance of air travel has not (ordinarily) found its way onto trains, buses, or your private automobile. If the hyperbole is so great you call America a police state, what do you then call North Korea?
You see a chain reaction of stupidity. I see a chain reaction of irrational fear and indiscriminate cruelty. Entire nations don't suddenly get dumber, but they can be overcome with fear and manipulation. When security agencies operate under a secret rubber stamp court, can monitor and record your every move without a warrant, and can shoot unarmed citizens who are sitting, laying down, or running away with impunity I consider that to be a police state. Not sure what else to call it.

You cannot avoid the police state by running away to Amtrak. Sooner or later the ever growing security apparatus will simply follow the crowd wherever it may go next. My supposedly private vehicle travel is routinely monitored by conventional cameras, infrared cameras, OCR license plate recorders, stationary and mobile radar, radio frequency identification collection, and even fake cell phone towers.

When I travel down the highway my vehicle is photographed and recorded by over a dozen different identification devices as I'm stopped and subjected to unwarranted drug and contraband inspections using questionable discovery techniques and my legal status is routinely questioned. I suppose we could call this a transitory "surveillance state" if it really makes you feel that much better. As for North Korea, that is a dictatorship. A status we do not currently live under, but should the current administration make good on previous threats to imprison the opposition I would be hard pressed to see otherwise.
 
We don't really know how it got escalated to this situation, and perhaps never will. It's just that the guy refused to get off the plane when asked, so law enforcement had to get involved. Perhaps they overstepped their bounds, but just search youTube. There are numerous videos of LEO's forcefully removing passengers. Most of them are drunk, yes. Some articles said they needed to get deadheading crew onboard to operate a later flight. Other reasons could be that the flight was overweight, but that would be an extremely rare case for a E-175. This has little to do with Republic Airlines as they happen to be the ones operating this flight on this particular day. Overbookings are handled by United and Chicago has all United staff working the gates. This will just go down as another PR ding for United until the next one comes up on the next airline in a week or two.
 
I still think the solution would be to eliminate all overbooking, and make all no-shows lose their entire fare paid...

That's the way Broadway theaters operate...use it or lose it...
 
We don't really know how it got escalated to this situation, and perhaps never will. It's just that the guy refused to get off the plane when asked, so law enforcement had to get involved.
Let's not use sloppy wording to gloss over the obvious. Being asked means you can choose to keep your seat. That's not what they were doing here. If there are exceptional circumstances that require giving away paid and confirmed seats to company staff then there should be an equally exceptional VDB benefit available that substantially outweighs the opportunity cost for enough travelers to vacate their seats. If you need to IDB a paid and checked-in passenger then you do it before they're already on board and seated with luggage stowed. Instead of using hyper-aggressive security services as the catchall solution to every minor problem maybe US companies should start training their frontline staff on appropriate deescalation techniques.
 
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With the right attorneys, this pax could well end up owning a large portion of United or Republic or whatever was involved. When time doesn't allow me to take the train and I fly, I always try to fly Southwest. They do a great job of getting the flying done without nickel-diming you to death.
 
Further reason and justification why as a potential tourist I have sadly steared away from traveling to the US for my honeymoon. Instead I will taking my £ and exchanging for Yen and swapping Amtrak for Shinkansen. I am not alone and UK tourists are turning away from the US in the thousands and it's costing your society millions in lost revenue

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/travel/2017/feb/28/us-tourism-experiences-a-trump-slump
Believe me, we won't loose sleep over the loss. The general public is generally really apathetic towards tourists here. Also due to the different tipping cultures, employees generally are loath to deal with tourists vs other Americans. Having worked in the service industry before, its the general mood of the employees who rely on tips.
 
And I remember when United billed themselves as "The Friendly Skies".
Whats your point?

American used to be "Something special in the air"

Delta "We love to fly and it shows"

They ALL suck. Between Delta's meltdown and United playing pinata with a passenger, I'm just waiting to see what American is going to do to to out do their competitors news.
 
The United CEO has kept digging himself into the PR hole by defending his staff's actions. That's the curious part of this debacle, keeping it going.

Also been picked by Chinese social media, hurting United's rep over there.

Never would have happened if 1)passengers were bumped at the gate instead of the plane or 2)ticket agent raised compensation to what someone was willing to take.
 
The United CEO has kept digging himself into the PR hole by defending his staff's actions. That's the curious part of this debacle, keeping it going.
&

United's market cap has slid from 22.5 to 21.70 billion. This dispute is only a minor blemish to them so far. Despite the backlash United is simply following the same blame-the-victim PR scrip as our current executive branch, so no surprises there. If UA have any fear at all it will be limited to antagonizing international customers and foreign institutional investors. On the other hand they may actually end up attracting more Russian and Filipino passengers as a result of this heavy handed hyper authoritarian video.

Never would have happened if 1)passengers were bumped at the gate instead of the plane or 2)ticket agent raised compensation to what someone was willing to take.
Agreed 100%, but from United's perspective why put effort into deescalation when you can simply call in security to mop up after your lousy customer service makes a complete mess of everything?
 
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Never would have happened if 1)passengers were bumped at the gate instead of the plane or 2)ticket agent raised compensation to what someone was willing to take.
Which is a critical point (for the sake of argument, has it been reported what volunteers were offered, and declined?). For sufficiently generous compensation, somebody is ultimately going to take the offer. A complimentary hotel or meals have a real cost, but things like (discount) travel vouchers and even free flights potentially cost the airline almost nothing (giving away seats which are likely to otherwise remain unsold).

Agreed 100%, but from United's perspective why put effort into deescalation when you can simply call in security to mop up after your lousy customer service makes a complete mess of everything?
One would have hoped deescalation would be the easier and more expedient option, but obviously not. You really have to wonder what some people were thinking (or lack thereof).
 
Forcibly removing a passenger who had a paid ticket and who did nothing wrong is a terrible violation of a persons civil rights. The airline overbooks to increase their profit and when the plane overfills, it becomes the paying customers fault. The cops that bloodied this man should go back, read the oath that they swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. In this case the airline is the enemy not the innocent law abiding passenger. Law enforcement must always honor their oath and not become brownshirt robots for the elite. Police are there to protect our rights not violate them. I hope that the injured passenger sues United Airlines (who is not even apologetic) and that the bad cop loses his job.
 
I'm surprised I'm the first one to point out a major problem with the premise of this thread: "One more reason to take the train."

The flight in question was from Chicago to Louisville. There is no train service to Louisville. Amtrak will sell you a train ticket to Indianapolis, arriving at midnight, followed by a 5:50 a.m. Thruway bus connection in the morning.

It's so incredibly hard to imagine why people would think that flying would be a better choice to get from Chicago to Louisville. :huh:
 
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