The Root Issues with the United Airlines Re-Accomodation

There has been so much written and recorded about United's issues this past week that it's become tiresome already.  As I want this post to stand the test of time, here's a recap though as we won't recall it in 3-9 months.

 Flight 3411 was due to depart from United hub at Chicago O'Hare to Louisville, Kentucky on Tuesday April 9th.  The flight was operated by United Express (Republic Airlines) an EMB-170 that accommodates 71 passengers and was booked full - but not oversold..  At some point in the boarding process, or immediately after, it was made known to the United ground staff - their gate agents - that the company needed 4 seats on the aircraft to position a set of flight attendants to Louisville to operate a another flight.  So they asked for volunteers and offered them the standard $400 rates and a hotel stay to take a  flight the next day.  No takers.  The flight finished boarding and was full, and then they repeated the denied boarding volunteer offers on-board, doubling the offer to $800 and the accommodation details that go with it.  A couple took that offer, freeing up 2 seats, or United had indicated that this couple would be involuntarily denied boarding, and they took the offer. That part isn't clear.  Regardless 2 people left the aircraft.  United then indicated that Dr. Dao was next on the list selected and he'd be denied boarding too.  He refused, United escalated the situation to the aviation security force that acts as police at O'Hare and they dragged him off the plane in the now infamous videos, injuring him and causing no end of harsh critique's of their handling of the situation from anyone with an opinion worldwide.  

United subsequently handled this exceptionally poorly, initially blaming the passenger, lauding their staff, finally acknowledging that this was a horror story for those involved and apologizing to the Doctor in question from a humbled CEO. They've lost hundreds of millions in market capitalization, endured many boycott calls and the airport aviation officers in question have all been placed on leave pending disciplinary hearings.

There are so many badly handled elements of this that it's hard to know where to begin.

1. United should take PR lessons
2. United ground staff ought to have had the common sense to avoid this outcome
3. United ground staff should not have boarded people to then have to un-board them
4. United shouldn't be allowed to use police to enforce a business practice
5. Dr. Dao should and will sue the pants-off of United and he'll win
6. United's CEO should resign - not because it happened, but because of the way he handled this, which prolonged and inflamed the outrage.
7. The aviation security force at O'Hare itself is under review now, as those officers are are not Police, and receive far less training than Police do.

I want to focus on one aspect however that is out of control and this incident illuminates it well.  It's the use of and acceptance of a police or security presence at airports to deal with 'security issues'.  In the post 9-11 age, with new threats emerging on a weekly basis, what constitutes a security threat..?Almost anything the airline wants to call a security threat it seems.  We've become so accustomed to this, so accepting of the hassles and personal affronts that airports represent these days that we don't question anything any longer.

Let me offer this - I've been denied boarding off of confirmed flights, and when younger I worked in an international airport and performed denied boarding.  The process and approach is 'accepted' and it goes hand in hand with over-selling flights.  So that's not the issue to me.  But if I go into a McDonalds and order a burger, and a few other people also order burgers at the same which exceeds the supply of burgers, McDonald's has no right to ask the Police to intercede and remove the burger I bought and paid for from them.  It's ludicrous.  But that's the situation that we face in an airport, and on an airplane these days.

A little while ago I was flying home from Europe from a business trip and wanted to use the forward lavatory.  It was busy and the crew mingling in the galley area next to it didn't seem to mind someone standing there.  So I waited as one does, and a flight attendant told me to return to my seat.  I politely let her know that I was waiting for the lav, and would just wait here a moment or two.  She looked me dead in the eye and asked if I was threatening the security of the flight.   What was an innocent enough situation that anyone who flies has been in before, turned very quickly into a super tense discussion.  What struck me from that encounter - I did go and sit down - was that in using that magic little security stick was the argument that couldn't be argued with.  I wasn't impressed and later made a comment back to the airplane about her pettiness, but in the moment, all of us are defenceless as Dr. Dao was when the cloud of security overshadows air travel.

The rebuttal to this is of course - would I still fly without these measure designed to protect me ?  You bet I would.

I am not a fan of being mothered and controlled because it's in my best interest.  I'd far prefer less security and more common sense, and am willing to forego any greater good of knowing we're being looked after.  It doesn't work on the roads (are you the worst driver you've seen? - no one is) and yet we all have licenses, and it has reached epically silly proportions at the airport.  This isn't the law enforcement agencies issue alone as they don't write the laws, though they are clearly part of the problem.  Why isn't every single car exceeding a speed limit pulled over - because they use judgement.  And judgement combined with common sense is what's missing from air travel.