United case exposes lack of rights
Booting passenger was legal, but airline has a PR problem
After a Facebook video surfaced Monday that showed a United Airlines passenger being forcibly removed from an overbooked flight at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, reaction from the public was swift.
And so was the question: Can they really do this?
Passengers have few rights when flights are “overbooked.”
Federal regulations do not prevent carriers from selling more seats than a flight can accommodate, a practice the airline industry says allows carriers to try to fill planes despite the number of no-shows that they can expect on any given flight.
Typically, airlines will ask for volunteers on oversold flights, promising some sort of compensation in return for taking a different flight. If few volunteer, carriers typically will keep increasing their offers until enough fliers agree to take another flight.
If not enough volunteers are found, the airline has the power to decide who gets “bumped” off the flight, though that typically happens before boarding.
Carriers spell that out in the “contract of carriage” that customers are bound to when they buy their tickets. But few fliers ever read that fine print, and such contracts don’t always specify a clear order for such situations.
The Department of Transportation does have clear guidance about compensation due to fliers “involuntarily denied boarding,” and that can pay off in the case of a significant inconvenience. For example, an involuntarily bumped traveler who arrives to her final destination more than four hours late is entitled to an amount worth 400% of her one-way fare (capped at a maximum of $1,350).
If there are not enough volunteers — as was the case with Sunday’s Flight 3411 — United’s contract says preference will be given to “Qualified Individuals with Disabilities, unaccompanied minors under the age of 18 years, or minors between the ages of 5 to 15 years who use the unaccompanied minor service.”
Beyond that, United does not spell out a hard and fast rule. Instead, the airline says only that “the priority of all other confirmed passengers may be determined based on a passenger’s fare class, itinerary, status of frequent-flier program membership, and the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment.”
Regardless, industry observers said they were surprised the situation unfolded the way it did for United.
“United could have easily avoided this historically bad public relations disaster had they increased the bumping compensation offer, either before boarding or once boarded,” says George Hobica, president of Airfarewatchdog. “Whatever it cost” — $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 — “would have been far cheaper than the cost to its reputation and the loss of business.
“You can be sure that passengers, at least this week, will choose any other airline to get where they’re going.”
The situation arose in part because United needed to get crew members onboard the sold-out flight so they could get to Louisville to work a “downline connection,” said United spokesman Jonathan Guerin.
The flight from Chicago O’Hare to Louisville was operated by United Express affiliate Republic Airlines.
CEO Oscar Munoz apologized and pledged to “conduct our own detailed review of what happened.”
But the video has made headlines across the country, giving United an unwanted public relations black eye just two weeks after it was exposed to criticism for denying boarding to two girls traveling on a guest pass because they were wearing leggings. Making it worse was that the passenger in this case had already boarded the flight.
“Once you’re offloading passengers who’ve already boarded so that you can get employees on the flight, you’d think they’d do just about anything to avoid that,” said Seth Kaplan, editor of the trade publication Airline Weekly.
Others echoed the sentiment that United probably could have handled the situation better.
“I’ve seen a lot in my 40 years covering and working for the airline industry, but this is historically bad public relations,” Hobica said.
“The burning question is, why did they wait until everyone was seated before realizing they needed to move employees?” .