In addition to an ambitious new ten-step customer service plan, United also issued a document entitled United Express Flight 3411 Review and Action Report. You should read that, but also read United’s letter to the Senate Commerce Committee for even more insight.
The public report begins with a detailed account of the incident, attempting to tell the story in an objective manner.
United Express Flight 3411 is regularly scheduled to fly Sunday through Friday from O’Hare to Louisville, with a planned departure of 5:40 p.m. CDT and an arrival of 8:02 p.m. EDT. Seating capacity is 70 customers.
Before boarding, flight 3411 was overbooked by one customer. Despite early attempt by United, via website/kiosk and multiple announcements at the gate asking for customers willing to take later flights, there were no volunteers. As a result, one customer who had not yet been given a seat assignment, was involuntarily denied boarding. The customer received a check as compensation and was booked on another United flight. The other customers were then called to board the plane.
At the same time, an earlier flight to Louisville, originally scheduled to depart O’Hare at 2:55 p.m. CDT was experiencing a maintenance issue (it was unclear if this issue could be fixed, but regardless, it would depart after 3411). Booked on this flight were four crew members, scheduled to operate the early Monday morning United Express flight from Louisville to Newark. Without this crew’s timely arrival in Louisville, there was the prospect of disrupting more than 100 United customers by canceling at least one flight on Monday and likely more. With this in mind, the four crew members were booked on flight 3411, creating the need to identify four customers who would not be able to take the flight.
United agents began to seek four volunteers, this time while customers were seated on the aircraft. The agent offered an $800 travel credit plus the cost of meals and hotel accommodations for the evening, but no customers were willing to accept the offer. The agent then followed the involuntary denial of boarding selection process to determine which customers would be asked to leave the airplane.
Once the four customers on flight 3411 were identified, the United supervisor spoke with two of the customers, a couple, who then departed the aircraft and received compensation. The next customers approached were Dr. Dao and his wife. The supervisor apologized and explained they would also need to depart the aircraft but Dr. Dao refused. The supervisor was unable to convince Dr. Dao to depart the aircraft. Given Dr. Dao’s unwillingness to deplane, the supervisor left the plane and spoke to the United zone controller, who indicated that authorities would be contacted. The supervisor went back on the plane to request again that Dr. Dao deplane and advised him that authorities would be contacted.
At this point, one customer onboard the aircraft volunteered to change flights for $1,000 but United needed two volunteers in order to avoid having to remove the Daos. No other customers would volunteer unless United could guarantee an arrival in Louisville later that night. Given the fact that the 2:55 p.m. CDT departure remained on a maintenance delay, with a possibility of cancelling, United could not make that commitment.
Officers from the Chicago Department of Aviation, which has authority to respond to such airline requests and historically has been effective in getting customers to voluntarily comply, answered United’s request for assistance. These security officers were unable to gain Dr. Dao’s cooperation to depart the plane voluntarily.
At this time, the United supervisor left the aircraft and attempted to call a manager about the situation, and Dr. Dao, as evidenced by widely reported video footage, was physically removed from his seat by the Chicago Department of Aviation Officers. After being forcibly removed from the aircraft, Dr. Dao ran back onto the airplane and Chicago Department of Aviation Officers removed him for a second time. He was later taken to a local hospital.
All customers then deplaned. After approximately 40 minutes, the flight re boarded without the Daos and departed for Louisville.
My Thoughts on United’s Narrative of UA3411
In the intro, United states plainly enough–
We can never apologize enough for what occurred and for our initial response that followed. United Airlines takes full responsibility for what happened.
Yet even in the very title of the report United seeks to cast blame off itself. It highlights this was a “United Express” flight, initaitng a subtle blame shift. The incident occurred on United Flight 3411, operated by Republic doing business as United Express. United Express does not have its own flight numbers.
I also draw your attention to the second to last paragraph of United’s narrative above. Notice what United does in emphasizing that there were no United personnel onboard during the removal. This is a method to shift blame to the Chicago Department of Aviation, perhaps even eventually in the form of an impleader in Dr. Dao’s civil trial.
So United takes blame in the “buck stops here” fashion, but still uses this report to passive aggressively blameshift. Note that I’m not saying that is an unreasonable action…just something that jumps out at me.
Second, I’m curious why the one passenger who eventually volunteered was not taken off the flight in addition to Mrs. Dao. Interestingly, we did not hear a peep from her. She may have been petrified by the incident or the husband’s reaction, but if she did not have patients in the morning perhaps she could have stayed behind while her husband flew?
Present in the Senate letter but not the public report (h/t to View from the Wing for posting it) is a bit more info. There was a later flight operated by United Express to SDF. It was booked full. There is no mention of whether an attempt to accommodate passengers on an ORD-SDF AA flight was made. At the time, the offer was $1,000, a hotel room, meal vouchers, and seat on the ORD-SDF UA flight the following afternoon.
We understand now why the flight crew had to be on this flight at the last minute. The rolling delay of UA4448 meant a very uncertain departure time than threatened the mandatory rest period for the crew. The ripple effect of a cancelled flight is real. I think IDBs are good policy on utilitarian grounds.
But if these four Republic crew members were traveling positive space (confirmed) on the delayed flight, couldn’t the four bumped passengers have been placed on that flight and still arrived same-day, just later? The Senate letter reveals only one of the bumped passengers was accommodated on that flight, which left several hours late from ORD. We know Dr. Dao and his wife were at an area hospital unable to make the flight…
CONCLUSION
We now have United’s play-by-play version of UA3411 on the record. While there are no startling revelations, I do pick up a subtle blameshift from United despite unequivocally bearing the blame in the introduction. What do you think?
I think you’re trying too hard to be critical of United. If the Chicago Department of Aviation had been more measured in response to the doctor’s behavior, there would be very little reason to criticize United. The security people showed poor judgment in response to a bizarre situation, and that makes United guilty of everything imaginable.
1. “…advised him that authorities would be contacted.”
2. “Officers from the Chicago Department of Aviation, which has authority to respond to such airline requests…”
I read the above statements as 1.”if you don’t leave I’ll call the bouncers” and 2.”CDA officers normally act as bouncers for UA”.
All very sad…
One point on the 4 people “randomly” selected to be involountary de-boarded. What are the chances to pick two couples?? Was UA trying to save money in hotel accomodation (1 room per couple Vs 4 rooms)? Or is there something else we don’t know.
@kojak,
Why are you picking this past the bone ? (“…why two couples”). Maybe it’s just easier to solicit couples because people want to stay together and not split up ????
I am not looking to dissect this too much but I do find it an interisting case. I thought they claimed the four passengers were picked randomly. Plus the 4 were not solicited but TOLD to leave (that’s what IDB is).
I also would like to know why when one other passenger volounteered for 1000$ UA refused. They choose to keep bumping 4 peolple instead of 3, couple or not.
STILL, people continue to pick apart every bit of minutia about this incident. What other statement do you think United should have given ? I think the one above is entirely appropriate and honest.
The passengers refused offered compensation, the gate agents went by policy and procedure. We get a clearer picture of Dr. Dao’s vacillation and escalating refusal to get off (after initially getting off and getting back on again). What really went wrong was the airport police taking excessive physical action to extricate him from the seat. This should have been the point where they (the police) walk off and let United decide what they were going to do about the flight either make a $ higher offer or cancel the flight and rework the boarding (denying boarding and providing appropriate compensation to the lowest fare passenger, no status, latest to check-in passenger, whatever it takes).
I have worked in this industry for over 35+ years and I have never seen things get as bad as this until every GREEDY airline decided it is just too much to put people on other airlines. This was a common solution for decades and now all of a sudden we can’t put anyone on another airline?. As well, this stubborn NO mentality was inherited from Continental. United was never this rigid, never. There is something underlying as well such as the inability to use the inferior tool from CO — (SHARES computer) that pre-merger United employees were forced onto. Their old computer could do ticket exchanges to other airlines quickly and easily, including fare differences or even fare exchanges. SHARES COULD NOT DO THAT — do you all realize that United agents are still using SHARES ???
“the gate agents went by policy and procedure…”
That’s exactly the point! UA had procedures to call authorities to solve revenue issues. All the fuss is about theese policies and procedudures which most people find arrogant.
You really believe that United’s resolving of revenue issues is to just call out the goon squad to deliberately pummel people off airplanes ? I feel this is just one incident that went haywire – by the airport police, not United.
How could the gate agent and supervisor that was present have any inkling that the airport police would strong-arm Dr. Dao to get him off ? If you call the police into a dangerous situation (someone breaking and entering your home), do you have any knowledge in advance that maybe the intruder will be shot and/or killed? If so, would that be your fault for having called the police?
The airport police over-reacted in this setting – Dr. Dao was a victim, they could obviously see that he was not a perpetrator of some crime or terrorist threat. You would think that people with clubs and guns would have restraint or at least some basic common sense that the problem was with United and to just leave the plane and establish what United needed to do next – worst case would have been they cancelled or delayed the flight until they got a buyer to get off. As well, the gate agent and/or UA supervisor were pretty lame not to think out of the box.
One doesn’t only have to look at this despicable incident to note that United passes the buck, and covers its anatomy. It has done for, so many years. In over fifty six years, United Airlines still has never taken responsibility for the negligence of its flight crew, on Dec. 16, 1960. A United Airlines DC-8 jet, was approaching the NYC Metropolitan area, at over 500 knots, at 10,000 feet, which is twice the speed that they are allowed to proceed, today. In those days, their pilots had a cowboy mentality. In addition, one of their transponders was not working. However, they never informed air traffic control of that problem. There was rain and fog in the area over Staten Island. As a result of the crew’s negligence, and incompetence, they slammed into a TWA Constellation at a right angle over Staten Island. They had been warned of the present of the TWA plane previously. As a result of the collision, both planes crashed. The United jet struck the Pillar of Fire church in Park Slope, in Brooklyn, NY, killing six people on the ground, and all aboard the United jet. The Constellation crashed into Miller Field, on Staten Island, also killing everyone on board. The latter accident, because of United’s negligence, remains the worst fatal accident over a major metropolitan area, between two commercial airliners, in the history of commercial aviation, in the USA.