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walkitouthttp://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-united-low-priority-passenger-20170412-story.html
Roughly similar to Dao, in that United had boarded a paying customer -- in this case, full fare, first class!!! -- and then tried to remove the person from the flight to make way for someone else.
To be clear, there is _nothing_ in FAA regs to justify doing this. Under rule 25, United's Refusal to Transport clause, there is _nothing_ to justify booting someone from the plane. In this case, they stashed the _full fare first class customer_ in a middle seat in coach.
So if you, like me, were thinking, well, you could just buy your way out of this problem by only flying first? Nope.
""Instead, the service rep offered to refund Fearns the difference between his first-class ticket and an economy ticket — about a week later, as if that wasn’t the first thing they should do in a situation like this — and to give him a $500 credit for a future trip on the airline.
“Despite the negative experience, we hope to have your continued support,” the rep concluded. “Your business is especially important to us and we'll do our utmost to make your future contacts with United satisfactory in every respect.”"
Not only was there no compensation for failing to provide the paid for service -- he had to go _ask_ to get the refund, it wasn't offered, and it wasn't a complete refund, nor was there additional compensation. And the cabin crew threatened to cuff this guy for saying he wanted to stay in his boarded, paid for, full fare, first class seat.
I hope he sues. I at least want the discovery part of the trial to occur.
ETA: The article sparked additional stories to come out:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-united-customer-emails-20170412-htmlstory.html
I find it striking that so many of these stories involve people basically dumping a United ticket and flying on another airlines, because between change fees and so forth, it didn't make any sense to continue to work with UAL. Makes you wonder how they ever wind up overbooked, if so many people don't even fly their tickets in the first place.
Roughly similar to Dao, in that United had boarded a paying customer -- in this case, full fare, first class!!! -- and then tried to remove the person from the flight to make way for someone else.
To be clear, there is _nothing_ in FAA regs to justify doing this. Under rule 25, United's Refusal to Transport clause, there is _nothing_ to justify booting someone from the plane. In this case, they stashed the _full fare first class customer_ in a middle seat in coach.
So if you, like me, were thinking, well, you could just buy your way out of this problem by only flying first? Nope.
""Instead, the service rep offered to refund Fearns the difference between his first-class ticket and an economy ticket — about a week later, as if that wasn’t the first thing they should do in a situation like this — and to give him a $500 credit for a future trip on the airline.
“Despite the negative experience, we hope to have your continued support,” the rep concluded. “Your business is especially important to us and we'll do our utmost to make your future contacts with United satisfactory in every respect.”"
Not only was there no compensation for failing to provide the paid for service -- he had to go _ask_ to get the refund, it wasn't offered, and it wasn't a complete refund, nor was there additional compensation. And the cabin crew threatened to cuff this guy for saying he wanted to stay in his boarded, paid for, full fare, first class seat.
I hope he sues. I at least want the discovery part of the trial to occur.
ETA: The article sparked additional stories to come out:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-united-customer-emails-20170412-htmlstory.html
I find it striking that so many of these stories involve people basically dumping a United ticket and flying on another airlines, because between change fees and so forth, it didn't make any sense to continue to work with UAL. Makes you wonder how they ever wind up overbooked, if so many people don't even fly their tickets in the first place.