Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Mon Apr 10, 2017 1:58 pm

I like that they didn't give a damn that one was a doctor with patients to see the next day. No liability issues (we know conscience is no driver here) there at all, nope.

The story's spreading pretty wide, so I'm not sure this could look much worse for United. Good.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Thad » Mon Apr 10, 2017 2:52 pm

Infuriatingly, most of the headlines I'm seeing are going with the phrase "dragged off" instead of "beaten unconscious".

This is why people don't trust the press.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Mon Apr 10, 2017 2:57 pm

This, after the silly leggings story is some real good PR for United. "Good" in the sense that it's correct.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby IGNORE ME » Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:21 pm

TA wrote:Beaten bloody, yes. And, emphatically, Asian man. It is important to not bury the racism of this violence,where the airline looked at a plane full of white people and picked the Asian couple to eject to make room for their employees who had work tomorrow, and who they immediately called the cops on when they didn't want to leave.


Oh okay, thanks for making it clear that this is a problem I'll never encounter personally. Phew.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Joxam » Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:24 pm

Thad wrote:Infuriatingly, most of the headlines I'm seeing are going with the phrase "dragged off" instead of "beaten unconscious".

This is why people don't trust the press.


Well I'm not defending the press but there are a lot of bullshit hoops you have to run through to get to the bottom of a story and when the official press statement from the police is that he 'fell' while being 'asked to leave' it does make reporting on this kinda shit a little harder and THAT is why people don't trust the police.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Thad » Mon Apr 10, 2017 3:37 pm

"Knocked unconscious", then.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Yoji » Mon Apr 10, 2017 6:57 pm

I guess I should've known better than to think they'd be content just mishandling luggage.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Thad » Tue Apr 11, 2017 1:56 pm

United has apparently lost hundreds of millions in early trading today. The CEO is still insisting that the crew didn't do anything wrong, which is a shockingly stupid thing to keep saying and far worse than saying nothing at all.

It seems quite clear that the best way to handle this, when no passengers agreed to leave the flight for $800, would have been to raise the offer until it became appealing enough for four people to accept it. I bet they could have found four people who would have taken another flight for substantially less than a hundred million dollars.

Hell, I'd have taken the $800. But I'm not a doctor.

(I realize that obviously there is no corporate policy in place for such a move; I'm saying that there should be. Though that's not *really* what I'm saying; what I'm really saying is that maybe airlines should consider, y'know, not overbooking their fucking flights. The tickets are already non-refundable; it's not like they're losing money when people don't show.

But if they *are* gonna commit to squeezing every dime, they should fucking *commit* to it. Do the cost/benefit analysis. Have a highly visible, truly random means for choosing which passengers get booted; have a much less visible, hard-to-game heuristic for determining how much you're willing to offer passengers to get off so you don't have to have them forcibly removed. If you're going to be predatory bastards, at least be competent! Don't generate a PR disaster that costs hundreds of millions to make hundreds of dollars!

Or, y'know, you could just not be predatory bastards. That would be an option too.)

(Also ,when I type "bastards", autocorrect keeps suggesting "batarangs". I felt like that was worth sharing.)

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mazian » Tue Apr 11, 2017 3:39 pm

Thad wrote:It seems quite clear that the best way to handle this, when no passengers agreed to leave the flight for $800, would have been to raise the offer until it became appealing enough for four people to accept it. I bet they could have found four people who would have taken another flight for substantially less than a hundred million dollars.


The maximum compensation for involuntarily denied boarding, under federal regulations (14 CFR 250.5) is $1350.

IDBs are pretty rare and have been getting rarer, affecting about 0.008% of US air travelers in recent years, but they do happen. (Voluntary denials of boarding, where someone accepts the payout offer for a later flight, are about 10x more common.) Between the FARs and airline contracts of carriage, it should be a pretty well ordered process, and every IDB requires a report back to the DOT.

Thad wrote:Have a highly visible, truly random means for choosing which passengers get booted


Quite the opposite - every airline has a visible and set procedure for choosing that list, usually some reverse-ordered combination of fare class and time since check-in. Specifically meant to avoid airline staff just choosing passengers they don't like. This is also why I don't buy a racial component to the removals, and I don't recall hearing anything about the first three passengers to leave.

If Republic Airways (who was operating this flight) actually followed procedures and the written contract of carriage, they're in the clear for removing any passengers they needed to. Mind you, any half-competent gate agents work out all the boarding details before letting passengers onto the plane, not after, and it seems like they just kept screwing up in every possible way from there - demonstrating again the gap between "legally right" and "right", and certainly not yet demonstrating from available evidence that they followed their own rules and the federal regulations. Once they turned things over to Chicago PD, it seems like Chicago PD responded with all the tact and grace they're known for.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Blossom » Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:04 pm

Mazian wrote:
Thad wrote:It seems quite clear that the best way to handle this, when no passengers agreed to leave the flight for $800, would have been to raise the offer until it became appealing enough for four people to accept it. I bet they could have found four people who would have taken another flight for substantially less than a hundred million dollars.


The maximum compensation for involuntarily denied boarding, under federal regulations (14 CFR 250.5) is $1350.

IDBs are pretty rare and have been getting rarer, affecting about 0.008% of US air travelers in recent years, but they do happen. (Voluntary denials of boarding, where someone accepts the payout offer for a later flight, are about 10x more common.) Between the FARs and airline contracts of carriage, it should be a pretty well ordered process, and every IDB requires a report back to the DOT.

Thad wrote:Have a highly visible, truly random means for choosing which passengers get booted


Quite the opposite - every airline has a visible and set procedure for choosing that list, usually some reverse-ordered combination of fare class and time since check-in. Specifically meant to avoid airline staff just choosing passengers they don't like. This is also why I don't buy a racial component to the removals, and I don't recall hearing anything about the first three passengers to leave.

If Republic Airways (who was operating this flight) actually followed procedures and the written contract of carriage, they're in the clear for removing any passengers they needed to. Mind you, any half-competent gate agents work out all the boarding details before letting passengers onto the plane, not after, and it seems like they just kept screwing up in every possible way from there - demonstrating again the gap between "legally right" and "right", and certainly not yet demonstrating from available evidence that they followed their own rules and the federal regulations. Once they turned things over to Chicago PD, it seems like Chicago PD responded with all the tact and grace they're known for.


Even if they followed procedures and the written contract of carriage, I strongly disagree that they get to be given a pass for forcibly removing seated passengers. Unconscionable policy and unconscionable non-negotiable contracts are not get-out-of-jail-free cards. Fortunately, they did neither. Everybody was seated, the flight was not overbooked, and two United flight attendants and two United pilots rolled up to the gate saying they needed to board so they could get to where they needed to work tomorrow.

IDB is Involuntary Denied Boarding, and Dr. Dao wasn't denied boarding. He had boarded and was seated, which means we're not Rule 25 of the CoC, which is IDBs, we're in Rule 21, which is Refusal of Transport. It is very specific about the circumstances under which they claim they can eject someone from the aircraft, and this was none of them. In their statements, United has been claiming that by refusing to get off because he needed to treat patients the next day, he was becoming belligerent and causing a disturbance, to try to trigger 21(H)(4), but that is self-evidently bullshit.

Also, you haven't heard about the other three passengers because there aren't another three individuals. They picked two couples, another couple who disembarked and then Dr. Dao and his wife. Curiously, Rule 25(2) specifies the priorities for IDBs - which do not apply here - as follows:
Boarding Priorities - If a flight is Oversold, no one may be denied boarding against his/her will until UA or other carrier personnel first ask for volunteers who will give up their reservations willingly in exchange for compensation as determined by UA. If there are not enough volunteers, other Passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily in accordance with UA’s boarding priority:

Passengers who are 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, will be the last to be involuntarily denied boarding if it is determined by UA that such denial would constitute a hardship.
The priority of all other confirmed passengers may be determined based on a passenger’s fare class, itinerary, status of frequent flyer program membership, and the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment.


Nothing there about marital status! How weird that this visible and predetermined process happened coincidentally to pick two married couples traveling without children, so this disrupted as few trips as possible! Clearly there was no room in here for race to enter into it.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mazian » Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:22 pm

TA wrote:IDB is Involuntary Denied Boarding, and Dr. Dao wasn't denied boarding. He had boarded and was seated, which means we're not Rule 25 of the CoC, which is IDBs, we're in Rule 21, which is Refusal of Transport.


Not nearly as well settled as you might think. "Boarding" is more commonly held to mean "until the aircraft door closes", and hence VDBs/IDBs can take place right up until that moment, but it's not entirely cut and dried.

I've certainly seen VDBs after boarding started, when they discovered a broken seat and so we had to drop one passenger. (Don't ask me how that didn't get reported earlier.)

TA wrote:Nothing there about marital status! How weird that this visible and predetermined process happened coincidentally to pick two married couples traveling without children, so this disrupted as few trips as possible! Clearly there was no room in here for race to enter into it.


That's... entirely consistent with the written policy? Couples traveling together almost certainly bought their tickets simultaneously, so the same fare class, and checked in at nearly the same time. Indeed, I would expect that keeping couples together rather than booting one is considered a feature, not a bug.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Thad » Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:33 pm

Apparently somebody showed Munoz today's trading numbers, because now he's furiously backpedaling and has issued an apology that's pretty close to the one he should have made in the first place -- I'm disturbed by what happened, I deeply apologize, we're going to review our policies and make sure this never happens again, etc. He still refers to the flight as "oversold", which, as TA points out, is wrong (though their policy for oversold flights is relevant, and if the policy was "don't oversell flights" then I doubt this would have happened, since the procedure here appears to have been "treat it like it was an oversold flight").

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Blossom » Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:41 pm

Mazian wrote:
TA wrote:IDB is Involuntary Denied Boarding, and Dr. Dao wasn't denied boarding. He had boarded and was seated, which means we're not Rule 25 of the CoC, which is IDBs, we're in Rule 21, which is Refusal of Transport.


Not nearly as well settled as you might think. "Boarding" is more commonly held to mean "until the aircraft door closes", and hence VDBs/IDBs can take place right up until that moment, but it's not entirely cut and dried.

I've certainly seen VDBs after boarding started, when they discovered a broken seat and so we had to drop one passenger. (Don't ask me how that didn't get reported earlier.)


Even if this interpretation were correct - and good luck selling a court on a definition of boarding that continues until potentially hours after you've boarded - it doesn't matter. Denied Boardings, Voluntary or Involuntary, can only take place when the flight is oversold. Once again, according to the facts and according to United themselves, it was not.

Mazian wrote:
TA wrote:Nothing there about marital status! How weird that this visible and predetermined process happened coincidentally to pick two married couples traveling without children, so this disrupted as few trips as possible! Clearly there was no room in here for race to enter into it.


That's... entirely consistent with the written policy? Couples traveling together almost certainly bought their tickets simultaneously, so the same fare class, and checked in at nearly the same time. Indeed, I would expect that keeping couples together rather than booting one is considered a feature, not a bug.


I don't see the written policy saying that time of check-in is a deciding factor. I see the policy saying that selection may be determined based on time of check-in without advanced seat assignment as one of several factors, along with fare class, itinerary, status of frequent flyer program membership, or who knows what else. This is the exact opposite of the "visible and set procedure" you describe - it's a partial set of nebulous descriptors, without weights or direction of measurement or even method of measurement, that makes the process entirely unpredictable and open to whatever the hell prejudices the people making the selection care to insert.

Defending late capitalism is not a good look, buddy.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Friday » Tue Apr 11, 2017 4:41 pm

Apparently somebody showed Munoz today's trading numbers, because now he's furiously backpedaling and has issued an apology that's pretty close to the one he should have made in the first place -- I'm disturbed by what happened, I deeply apologize, we're going to review our policies and make sure this never happens again, etc. He still refers to the flight as "oversold", which, as TA points out, is wrong (though their policy for oversold flights is relevant, and if the policy was "don't oversell flights" then I doubt this would have happened, since the procedure here appears to have been "treat it like it was an oversold flight").


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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Niku » Tue Apr 11, 2017 5:02 pm

my favorite part about how the news is now dragging out his priors history is how fucking close i came to blithely posting last night about how "well i bet he was no angle"
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Esperath » Tue Apr 11, 2017 5:05 pm

TA wrote:Defending late capitalism is not a good look, buddy.


Condescension is a great way to get your argument well-received, champ.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mongrel » Tue Apr 11, 2017 6:11 pm

Niku wrote:my favorite part about how the news is now dragging out his priors history is how fucking close i came to blithely posting last night about how "well i bet he was no angle"

This is sort of funny, because this is the CEO United got after firing the last one for corruption and malfeasance.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Blossom » Tue Apr 11, 2017 7:26 pm

Correction: another couple was asked first, but did not disembark. According to passengers on the plane, that couple refused, so the airline staff moved on to the Daos. Somehow, they didn't escalate that and call in three cops.
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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby Mazian » Tue Apr 11, 2017 8:13 pm

TA wrote:Correction: another couple was asked first, but did not disembark. According to passengers on the plane, that couple refused, so the airline staff moved on to the Daos. Somehow, they didn't escalate that and call in three cops.


"Conflicting accounts", says that same journalist; other passengers (WaPo) say that three passengers had already deboarded, one couple and one singleton. I can't find any actual source that says he was traveling with his wife.

It was pretty appallingly mishandled at all steps which no one disagrees with, I'm not sure why you insist on armchair-lawyering and fifth-hand-hearsay-on-Twitter-sourcing it further.

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Re: Bogus, batshit, banal, bizarre, or bicubic: Assorted News

Postby zaratustra » Wed Apr 12, 2017 6:02 am

whups



WHUPS



wa wa waaaaa

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