It was a premeditated temper tantrum gone viral.
there’s no evidence any of that was true. It was in fact a premeditated temper tantrum gone viral, featuring one 69-year-old Vietnamese-American David Dao, a medical doctor who’d lost his license, planning a lawsuit from the moment United first politely asked him to give up his seat. He demanded to be dragged and, when police obliged, struck his lip on an armrest. From the many videos taken by numerous passengers, from numerous angles, there’s no evidence of a beating, a “serious” concussion, or bodily damage beyond that lip.
Although some like the Huffington Post want us to ignore his sordid past as inconsequential or “blaming the victim,” it’s important that Dao in 1995 was charged with 98 felony drug counts for illegally prescribing and trafficking painkillers, sometimes in exchange for homosexual sex. (He’s married. To a woman.) That normally would get you identified as unreliable. He surrendered his medical license and even now is allowed to practice internal medicine only in an outpatient facility one day a week.
.. To be sure, United deserves blame and played into Dao’s hands
.. But once he was asked to give up his seat, along with three other passengers who willingly obliged, Dao’s mental gears began to whirl. One video depicts him telling someone by telephone “I make lawsuit against United Airlines for discrimination.” Yet another video shows him insisting that he be dragged. All the while he held up the departure, as indeed he would again as everyone had to leave while the blood was cleaned up.
.. This is obvious nonsense, so how did he get so far with it?
.. The London Independent went so far as to say Dao’s life was “ruined,” while one of his team of attorneys asserted Dao “said that being dragged down the aisle was more horrifying and harrowing than what he experienced when leaving Vietnam.” By tomorrow it will be worse than having been gassed at Auschwitz.
.. Thirteen years ago I penned a column called “Victims Are Our New Heroes,”
Behind United Airlines’ Fateful Decision to Call Police
Airline’s rules-based culture in spotlight after man was dragged off flight by law enforcement
.. Deviating from the rules is frowned upon; employees can face termination for a foul-up, according to people familiar with the matter... At United, this has helped create a rules-based culture where its 85,000 employees are reluctant to make choices not in the “book,”.. At least some decisions that led to the crisis were fueled by employees following rules.. Last Sunday evening, Republic Airways Holdings Inc., the regional airline operating the flight for United, asked an hour before departure for four of its crew members to take the place of passengers, according to a person familiar with the matter. The crew was needed the next day at the flight’s destination in Louisville, Ky., the person said.. But the two pilots and two flight attendants didn’t arrive at the gate until a few minutes before departure, according to United’s pilots union. All the passengers were already seated... In hindsight, the gate agent should have said, “Folks, we’re not leaving until someone gets off. If someone doesn’t take the $800, we’re going to cancel the flight,” said the United pilot, who wasn’t involved in the incident.
.. People close to United said the rules-based calculus is to inconvenience the fewest number of fliers... United hasn’t provided its front-line managers and supervisors with “the proper tools, policies, procedures that allow them to use their common sense.”“That’s on me,“ he said. ”I have to fix that... Decades-old union conventions that enshrine seniority over performance are part of the problem, one former executive said, because employees are rewarded for their tenure rather than their talent.
.. Mr. Munoz also said United will change its former policy of asking law enforcement officers to remove passengers from its flights—unless it is a matter of safety and security... But Mr. Milton added that Dr. Dao’s mistreatment and United’s flat-footed reaction must become “a defining moment in the history of United Airlines pivoting to customer service and customer delivery.”
Why Airlines Can Get Away With Bad Customer Service
She passes attendants who smile only at the elite shoppers, offering them refreshments and guiding them toward the best deals.
.. Most companies couldn’t get away with triaging their customers this way. But some already do: airlines.
.. not like typical rewards systems, which simply encourage loyalty with discounts. Instead, they create elaborate hierarchies, discriminating between platinum flyers and coach passengers in nearly every step of the air-travel experience, from booking to baggage claim... Airlines can game out just how much each customer is worth, and treat them accordingly.. there’s little budget passengers can do to avoid an airline they don’t like. The big U.S. carriers have near-monopolies over air travel from many (though not all) major American airports.. That makes boycotting a major airline nearly impossible
How Could United Airlines Do That?
the dealer would be culpable of fraud. Yet airlines do pretty much the same thing thousands of times a day when they overbook their flights.
Their excuse of protecting themselves against loss from no-shows and last-minute rescheduling is hardly credible in view of the exorbitant fees they impose on passengers who don’t turn up for a booked flight.
If airlines are allowed to penalize customers for missing or rescheduling a flight, regulators should bar the airlines from overbooking.