'Infuriated' United pilots union slams cops for forcibly dragging passenger from plane
While not beating a dead horse intentionally, this is an interesting study in the modern media. When it happened, United was all ag-go defending the fort. Then it became an "oops" type thing, and now has morphed into full blown "blame someone else". What was a "United di well and I stand by them" Tuesday, is now "It was Republic Airlines and the evil police" (never mind United requetsed the evil police to come remove the poor guy). This is almost like a real time laboratory, where we get to see and chronical every change, move, nuance that has occured in the story. Now the United PIlots are feeling the threrat, possibly to their jobs, and have gone on their own offensive, again throwing the "it wasn't us" flag and blaming Republic and the evil police. This is what is going on every day, as media manipulates, and "undisclosed sources" disclose. In such an atmosphere, how much "facts" are to be found? How objective is anyone in this game?
The aircraft was not overbooked, it was fully booked. There is a major difference and some of the media even got this right.
Even Munoz admitted Dao was doing nothing wrong when he was brutally assaulted to make room for "must travel" crew that could have gone on another airline or even a charter. So much for "Customer First" at United --- where they now offer either a pillow or a neck brace and have bouncers in the main cabin. Board as a doctor. Leave as a patient is not a great reputation to have.
When you take a failing airline (United) and merge it with another failing airline (Continental) without having good management in place, what you get is a larger failing airline. "Mistakes were made, but not by me" surfaces again.
http://www.americamagazine.org/politi...
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/...
Here’s an encouraging opposing view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlOkp...
I think that “overbooking” by airlines would be much less widespread if there were a true free market in air travel.
But what can you expect? Airline travelers are not the brightest bulbs in the hallway. The fact that they not only put up with but demand that the needless TSA stay in place proves that they are idiots. I'd much rather ride a Greyhound bus than a plane, so long as the so-called market is like that.
Yes. I also think some vendor screwups are a part of life no mater what.
To me the bigger issue is our police departments are not good at diffusing conflict and doing things like removing people from other's people's property without beating them. It's easy for me to say and a lot to ask of police officers, but I think we should ask it. Police officers acting like combatants in a war with citizens has gotten out of hand. It seems like our attitude is in the short-run it's safer for police officers to move in armored vehicles than to walk around and get to know people. Ideally the gov't structures would create laws the reflect citizens' needs, so police would have an army of law-abiding people everywhere who want to help them stop/solve crimes. We're so far from that. This environment is what caused the police to physical beat the guy on the plane.
The police probably could have diffused the situation with no force by talking the guy down, maybe saying they see why he feels wronged, but they own the plane, so they can kick people off for bad reasons if they want. They could have offered to help him get to the customer service people and complain. They could have asked if any other passengers would reconsider since this guy says he really needs to travel. Instead it's the war mentality. We're at war against drugs and guns and whatever, and if we really mean it then that means US citizens are the enemy in an armed conflict.
What's them? I missing your meaning.
As far as cops go, yes, they have become aggressive in the last few years, especially after you had an administration that basically justified any criminal act and then blamed the cops for trying to do their job. There also are people who are cops who should not be doing it. Police departments are controlled and administered by the same useless government cronies that run the rest of our broken civilization, so it is not a shock that they do some of the cringeworthy things they do. Had the airport cops been given a decent ROE such as "You go on for drunks, druggies, criminals. Other than that, stay off planes" this would not have happened. Again poor management and failure to do simple "what if" problem solving.
That's obvious to me. I agree it's a horrible way to run a business. I think it's their plane, though, and they can kick people off if they want to.
More reasons to suspect the federal government's tale explaining 9/11.
That's an un-brainwashed American public commenting on the official conspiracy theory. ;^)
I disagree wholeheartedly with the American Magazine piece. I understand why you avoid the word capitalism, but I won't. It's a fact of the universe that resources and our time alive to use them and enjoy them are limited. There has to be some decision making process as to how scarce resources are used. Capitalism gives people the freedom to enjoy their wealth now or put it to use building something that may create more wealth in the future. I don't see how that relates to the United issue. People have finite time to build airplanes, operate them, and extra fuel to power them. It takes human work to provide transportation or any service. You can have the king's experts, backed by whips and guns, figure out how much everyone should work, consume, and invest in future production; or people can control their lives and everything make.
Under any system, there's always scarcity. People rightly want more trips, free time, etc, but someone has to do the work. This fact of life is why the Christian Bible opens with a myth explaining why unlimited food doesn't crop up without human effort. The myth says it's because just as children grow and rebel against the benevolent dictatorship of their parents, it's in humankind's nature not to want to remain children and have everything handed to them. My only point in repeating a myth is to show scarcity has been a key issue for humanity since antiquity.
I am not saying airlines are run by pure capitalism. I just won't give up the word capitalism because of the PR hit due to things like that American Magazine article mischaracterizing it.
I think of regulation as being for cases where lawsuits are constantly coming up. Say loud sounds carrying onto a neighbor's property reduce its value. We could document this in court by comparing two groups of similar properties, one in noisy locations and another in quiet locations. Every time there is a noise issue, the person who lost value due to noise, could take the person making the noise to court. But it would be simpler to set a regulation.
These potential-lawsuit issues come up more common in densely populated areas, so those areas need more regulation. People in urban areas want more regulation and therefore wrongly come off to rural people as collectivists. People in rural regions want less regulation and wrongly come off to urban people as wanting to get away with trashing their neighbor's stuff.
If I worked in policy, I might learn that my view is simplistic, but based on my current understanding I want regulations that obviate the time-consuming process of litigating issues like the noise-pollution example.
My point is that regulation's purpose should be to prevent lawsuits.
with that said, I requested the removal of passengers a number of times while at the gate with the door open...and forcibly removed....by sheriff's deputies...I filled out paperwork for 90 days and that was the end of it for me as the Captain...no cell phone videos back then, but there was plenty of cursing, kicking, and screaming by unruly passengers...
...and there was no limit to the amount of money used to "buy" oversolds off the airplane (and everyone who volunteered at the opening offer got the final offer, i.e....$100 first offer....$2,000 final offer...everyone got the $2,000 offer...and if you pressed, you got a check for cash rather than the voucher for future travel that was publicly offered...
bottom line...there are some people you do not want to be trapped in a silver tube for 6-10 hours with...if they cannot be happy in the tube...they need to go somewhere else to be happy...most of these individuals got three hots and a cot (24 hours in the slammer)...
flight attendants used to be able to tell passenger to behave or the Captain was going to come back and "talk" to them....can't do that now in the post-9/11 environment...could be plot to capture Captain and take over airplane...what a joy...we became prisoners in our own airplane...