Feedback
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. - The Cleveland Press, March 1, 1921, GK Chesterton
I really don't care what Denninger says. He gets referred to like his blog is written on stone tablets. It's not.
The good doctor's ticket carries rights spelled out in the Contract of Carriage which DOES give the operator some rights to deny him boarding. Where I draw the line on how they handled it was that they boarded him when they let him cross the gate threshold and get on the plane. I know they referred to "denying him boarding" when they first referenced this incident but they always talk about deboarding when they talk about having passengers get off the plane.
Had this been a case where the doctor was complaining about involuntary deboarding after he notified them about issues it creates in medical treatments for patients and he acted calmly and rationally, it would be one thing. The video that went viral didn't show any of the prior situation (as these videos rarely do) but it DID show him going into hysterics and struggling violently. That created an entirely different situation legally and either way, he didn't have an absolute right to that seat on that plane.
Denninger is probably one of the few people who is consistently right not only on actual law on the books but also the mathematical realities of this now failed economy and country. I don't agree with him on everything, but his facts aren't wrong. :shrug:
Feedback
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. - The Cleveland Press, March 1, 1921, GK Chesterton
People in 3rd world countries just biting the bullet and putting up with terrible conditions is exactly what keeps them in a 3rd world country, and is exactly what keeps the country "3rd world." America was born out of an event where a few people decided that they didn't have to take a bite out of every single shit sandwich that live serves up to them. Being tough and resilient is great, until you're so tough, and so resilient that you put up with anything and never create a catalyst for change in your life.
How easy would it be to rewrite Molan Labe's post about people whinning about a 2% tax? There are a lot of contracts where the provider of services gets to write the contract to their advantage, insurance policies being the one most people are familiar with. That said, shitty conditions in contacts exist because everyone just puts up with them. While this particular passenger is no champion of anything I'm talking about, as it seems he threw a fit for different reasons, this event can lead to the population as a whole letting the industry know that they aren't happy with the way business is run. I don't think anything will happen to change, especially since there is a lot more to this than just contact wording, and everything will vote over and go back to normal. By no means is being dissatisfied with something a sign of weakness or being soft.
Feedback
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. - The Cleveland Press, March 1, 1921, GK Chesterton
I travel quite a bit too -- for both business and pleasure -- and usually go on United. In counterpoint, I would estimate that my flights on United have been delayed at MOST 25% of the time and most of those delays were due to weather. I haven't had a flight cancellation on United for several years. The closest I came to that was a trip I took to Sumatra a couple years ago where the smoke from illegal fires caused flight cancellations for 2 days across 4 airports -- including my day of departure. Because I was a no-show for the United flight from Singapore (Silk Air only took care of getting me from Sumatra to Singapore the following day), United made my ticket invalid and the only way to fix it would have been to leave the airport to go to their ticket counter. Going through customs and entering the country just to talk to the Ticketing counter and then coming back through Security to "leave" the country was a non-starter for a variety of reasons.
Instead, I got ahold of a United agent in Chicago who got me out on the next flight about 90 minutes later. They worked the coordination with Silk Air to get my bags and gave me the baggage info on the plane as they were already boarding when I got to the gate. No additional charges since I had documentation that the change was due to circumstances beyond my control but the agent really busted arse to get me home (as opposed to the Singapore Airlines counter agent detailed as their out-of-hours rep who couldn't be bothered to do anything other than tell me to go outside the airport to talk to Ticketing).
By the way, I had similar good service from them in rebooking when we had the Snowmageddon in 2006 that shut down Colorado airports just before Christmas. The fare had been sold by US Air but was being flown by United -- US Air left me hanging while the United agent I talked to understood the situation, got her supervisor on the phone along with the US Air agent and HIS supervisor and worked it all out. I had figured I was going to miss Christmas and just wanted to let my mother know what day to pick me up, United got me out the very next day.
They are far from perfect but they are also nowhere near the villains I'm seeing in the press and on the Internet today.
Let's play a game...
Dr. Dao is instead LCpl Smith, hot off the bird from Astan. New baby he hasn't seen. 14 days, use it or lose it. Being delayed puts him a whole day away from family due to the scheduling of picking him up from the airport. He wants to get home ASAP. He gets bumped involuntarily.
Fuck that guy, right? Pound sand, Lance coolie... you have no RIGHT to fly and no one GUARANTEED you shit.
I bet there'd be righteous outrage.
Feedback
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. - The Cleveland Press, March 1, 1921, GK Chesterton