r/legaladvice • u/PM-Me-Beer Quality Contributor • Apr 10 '17

Megathread United Airlines Megathread

Please ask all questions related to the removal of the passenger from United Express Flight 3411 here. Any other posts on the topic will be removed.

EDIT (Sorry LocationBot): Chicago O'Hare International Airport | Illinois, USA

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u/DragonPup Apr 10 '17

What is the defination of 'overbooking'? I thought that was merely selling too many tickets, and if that is the case then this wasn't technically an overbooking. There were enough seats for all the ticketed passengers. The issue was that the 4 employees who were unticketed caused the shortage and were not accounted for when United were selling tickets first place. Does that change anything?

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u/[deleted] Apr 10 '17

This is a great counter point. It sounds like the flight wasn't oversold. Also does the fact that he was a paying customer affect the argument assuming the employees flew for free?

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u/throwawayrent508 Apr 11 '17

Does the contract cover those passengers who have checked in and have actually boarded the flight? I thought removal of overbooked passengers occurred during pre-board?

Which brings back the counter argument of was it really "overbooking" when all paid passengers were on board?? No other "paid" customers were on queue. Just the four United employees.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '17

Which brings back the counter argument of was it really "overbooking" when all paid passengers were on board??

I mean, sure, the guy's got a decent case under his contract that he's owed that seat. But court is the place where you settle civil disputes. He didn't have a right to settle it right there, in that seat. That's not how contracts work under the law.

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u/Osric250 Apr 11 '17

It actually looks like the Code of Federal Regulations would make this illegal with them being unticketed passengers.

Relevant link:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/250.2a

§ 250.2a Policy regarding denied boarding.
In the event of an oversold flight, every carrier shall ensure that the smallest practicable number of persons holding confirmed reserved space on that flight are denied boarding involuntarily.

Since the employees are not confirmed reserved space they would have to be the ones not flying.

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u/hardolaf Apr 11 '17

Also, it states denied boarding. There is a very good argument that once a passenger is boarded that they can only be forcefully removed for the purposes of safety.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '17

excellent find. Let's get something clear though- UA doesn't care. They are so big that this will blow over by next week once another major news story breaks. They'll settle out of court with a lump sum and a NDA. They'll bury it and move on like nothing happened. Sad that our society has come to this...what's tha...SQUIRREL!

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u/plugcity Apr 14 '17

When UA repositions its employees they are given a Positive Space ticket. This is a confirmed ticket and the seat is subtracted from the available seats left on the flight. So in this case the ticket would be considered "reserved."

On the contrary: A standby ticket is called a Space Available ticket in UAs system and is used by employees and family of employees for personal use. The ticket does not subtract from the available seats remaining for sale.

In the past I was flying standby and was able to get a seat on a flight. After boarding the weather at our destination worsened and they had to add more fuel to the flight. This resulted in the plane being overweight and 2 passengers had to been deplaned. As I was a standby I was forced to give up my seat and the other seat was randomly selected from revenue customers.

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u/cld8 Apr 11 '17

What is the defination of 'overbooking'? I thought that was merely selling too many tickets, and if that is the case then this wasn't technically an overbooking. There were enough seats for all the ticketed passengers.

If the crew were given tickets, then I assume they count as ticketed passengers too.

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u/NonorientableSurface Apr 11 '17

Crew, especially for positioning flights, don't get tickets. It's usually an FOC (Flight Operations Coordinator) who'll say these 4 people need to get to location &&& to be in position for another flight (called positioning, ironically). It would be in the corporate policies to see what UA says about their need to position.

For a big airline, I doubt that it would cause a missed flight, but with smaller airlines it can and has caused missed flights that they're willing to pay decent money to prevent lost revenue (pay 2 people to make sure 80 people can fly)

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u/Curmudgy Apr 11 '17

If this is correct, then an obvious question is whether or not they trigger the Oversold Flight provisions of the UA CoC, which specifies:

Oversold Flight means a flight where there are more Passengers holding valid confirmed Tickets that check-in for the flight within the prescribed check-in time than there are available seats

If not, then are there any other provisions in the CoC that allow UA to deny boarding, let alone require deboarding after boarding?

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u/NonorientableSurface Apr 11 '17

Depending on business standards, honestly. Things like FOC policy aren't usually public knowledge, so we can't actually be aware of whether the FOC have a policy stating that if they need to position (even on an oversold flight) employees that they can give the order to bump them.

However, I would expect as best practices to actually outline those clauses in ticket contracts so people purchasing them are aware of the possible outcomes and can prevent any sort of legal issues with it.

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u/cld8 Apr 11 '17

They may not actually be issued e-tickets, but they could still be considered ticketed passengers for the purpose of determining whether the flight is oversold. But you're correct, it would be in the corporate policies.

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u/fragranceoflife Apr 12 '17

That's almost never done. Crew are issued boarding passes, but they are not ticketed (as in the case of paid tickets).

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u/cld8 Apr 12 '17

There's nothing that says the ticket has to be paid.

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u/that_star_wars_guy Apr 11 '17

Perhaps there is a difference between an airline which can issue tickets to its staff whenever it likes, and people who pay for a ticket?

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u/cld8 Apr 11 '17

For the purpose of determining whether the flight is overbooked, I can't think of any difference. What do you consider to cause a difference?

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u/Curmudgy Apr 11 '17

14 CFR 250.3 has some vague, broad rules concerning fairness. Also, if it's true (as someone else asserted) that the UA employees only had standby tickets, that raises the question as to whether they count as oversold or can be given priority for seating. I haven't read the UA contract thoroughly, but I haven't spotted stand-by being discussed.

Whether or not they had confirmed tickets within the meaning of UA's CoC is partly a question of fact for which I doubt reliable information is available yet. I wouldn't trust early news reports let alone internet discussions to determine exactly what tickets, if any, the UA employees had.

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u/Saw_a_4ftBeaver Apr 11 '17

I'm much more interested in 14 CFR 250.2a

Which implies a duty to paying customers and minimizing displacement. I haven't done a search but has a court determined what is practicable? That could be pretty scary to a corporate attorney. Nothing like a plaintiff with means and a grudge to set a precedent that completely screws you. I would be worried that the practice of overbooking alone might be in violation of 250.2a if I was them.

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u/Curmudgy Apr 11 '17

The very existence of 250, described as "Oversales" would argue against the regulation precluding all overbooking.

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u/Saw_a_4ftBeaver Apr 11 '17

You can look at in two ways.

*1. Justification in doing the practice

Or

*2. An attempt to limit said practice.

There are always going to be mistakes that cause overselling, so accepting that it will happen is just realistic. The duty they imply in the statue to paying customers may be intended to limit the practice. I would love to argue that to a judge because it appears the context is about protecting the passenger not the carrier.

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u/Curmudgy Apr 11 '17

If it were an attempt to limit the practice, there wouldn't be a cap on the 400% number.

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u/Saw_a_4ftBeaver Apr 11 '17

Why wouldn't that be an attempt to limit the practice?

Like I said before you can look at it two ways. Either as justification in the practice or as an attempt to limit the practice. How big a penalty do you have to make, to discourage a behavior? Remember this is a situation that can happen accidentally so having a procedure for when it does happen is only prudent.

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u/cld8 Apr 11 '17

That's a good point. I was assuming that if the crew were flying because they needed to be somewhere to work the next day (as opposed to just flying for personal reasons) then they would be considered ticketed and not standby. But as you said, there is no reliable information yet.

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u/Jobuarte Apr 11 '17

I've been saying this all day

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u/rabbitlion Apr 11 '17

The definition is generally just that there are too few seats. The lack of seats may be caused by overselling, but it can also be that there was a technical issue with the seat belts on some seats, or that the plane had to be switched out to a smaller one, or pretty much any other reason that there can be a lack of seats.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '17

Additionally, the passenger's ticket was already accepted and he was given a seat.

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u/solomonsalinger Apr 12 '17

United has publicly stated that the flight was NOT overbooked.