How much $ if UAL simply chartered a small plane for the 4 staff this time? $50,000?
Because the maximum compensation would be about $6,000 (=$1,500x4), plus other opportunity costs to cover other potential losses such as goodwill, convenience, time, legal, managerial, administrative, paperwork, appointing PR firm, etc. etc. Say another $40,000 based on $10,000 on average per customer.
The logistics of effectively transferring 4 staff should have been pro-actively planned by at least 24 to 48 hours in advance.
Looks like the CEO this time performed poorly, showing lack of knowledge and judgment. Knowing immediately that one of the law enforcement staff has been temporarily asked on leave.
The rest from now on should be quite straightforward, imo.
Still cannot understand WHY those 4 staff cannot just rent a car and just drive there and get reimbursed later. The drive is only 4-5 hours!! And their flight is not until the next day and yet they have to force customers to take the next flight which is not for another 24 hours!!
No I will tell you why. It's because the REASON WHY we are getting bumped in the context of the manner that the doctor was removed from the plane. Before this incident, all we thought the reason why we get bumped is because the airline wanted to make extra bucks to sell the same seats few extra times in case if somebody cancels and wants refund. We all THOUGHT it was just ordinary corporate greed, again something that we are already used to and accept as part of life but we NEVER thought, out of our wildest dreams that they would bump PAYING customers who have already PAID for their right on that flight (and it IS a right otherwise we wouldn't even be allowed to be on the flight) because they wanted to make way for their OWN STAFF so they can get to work on time! They are NOT even interested in making more money with what they have taken from you because they have already made so much that they just don't give a shit about you customers even if you paid, and they don't even hesitate to use violent force to show you how little they care about you.
If it's not for this doctor who chose to stand up to authorities instead of
I do what I'm told to by authority
like the 400K+ passengers that just quietly accepted being bumped off including the three passengers with his own wife included that just left the plane quietly before him, we STILL would NOT have found out just how far Corporate America can abuse us customers after they have already taken our money, just how little human rights we have, the very same "human rights" that's supposedly been protected by the Constitution, the human rights that we proudly showcase to the rest of the world and use to chastise other regimes. At the end of the day, with ALL the "human rights" and "freedom" that you have, you can't even sit in a seat on an airplane that you have paid for. And if you try, this is what you get, a beating and public humiliation in front of 200+ people. We only hear about this kind of treatment happening in some third world countries, in some totalitarian regimes that we make fun of; we only read about this kind of brutality in a story in a time bygone. We NEVER thought that the horror that have heard about and read about would happen RIGHT HERE in the heartland of America RIGHT NOW in the 21st century RIGHT in front of our face! I am sure all of the passengers on that plane and also everyone of us watching this video must have at one point pinched ourselves and wondered "Is this real??!! Is this REALLY happening?!!! It must be a joke!!" He just wanted to sit in a seat that he paid for, and they would do THIS to him??!! In broad daylight in public??!!! No, it IS REAL; it IS REALLY happening and it is NOT a joke!!" Everything that you have heard about and read about is TRUE and it IS happening. And this doctor just opened our eyes and forced us to face reality. This doctor is a HERO. If not for him, we would still be living like ostriches blindly believing the lies that we have all been fed that "I have rights" and "I have freedom".
That's WHY we are all enraged because we just realized that we have been living a lie and for so long??!! And we are also scared that if they can do this to us when we have already PAID our money to those corporations, what happen when we didn't pay?? And today they just punch his nose, make his lips cut, drag him out? What's next? Take out a gun and just shoot us in the head if we are not willing to be bumped? This is as low as we can get; we cannot get any lower than that. We put up with shitty products and crappy services after we paid but at least we are safe and secure and now we can get physically assaulted if we choose to say something. How low can we get as human beings to get some products/services? Do we really need to get a bullet in the head to find out?
It's just ironic that it actually took somebody who REALLY believed in and actually had faith in our "human rights" or at least the rights as a customer and "freedom" to make us realize that we actually don't have anything even if we gave up our financial resources. He did this because he REALLY believed nothing will happen to him; he was so confident that his rights to at least "safety and security" would be protected. This is a video of him arguing with the security before the violence:
http://globalnews.ca/news/3373761/v...david-dao-dragged-off-united-airlines-flight/
If he had one tiny realization and concern that he might be physically assault that a company would resort to violence to deny him the services he paid for, I am SURE he would've hesitated in the spirit of self-preservation. But because he is so confident about his rights and freedom would be protected in America, the leader in the free world that he actually "challenged the authority" and in the process exposed to us the state of "democracy" that we live in, the "democracy" that the rest of us have given up LONG time ago.