Like the GP said : this was a logistical problem. They needed to get 4 employees from point A to point B 300 miles away. There are several ways of tackling this challenge :

1. continue escalating their shitty voucher bribes : sooner or later someone's gonna bite

2. arrange alternate air transport for the crew : they're already in an airport, and 2 of their competitors (American, Southwest) have multiple direct flights between Chicago and Louisville each day

3. arrange ground transport : otherwise known as renting a car and driving. Not super fun, but I've had ironically had United pull that shit on me from NYC to DC - i.e. they cancelled a flight and put us on an overnight coach bus. If it's good enough for customers, it's good enough for the crew.

4. suck it up and delay whatever flight that crew was scheduled for. It sucks, but it was their mistake to overbook and this isn't a safety-critical situation.

Bottom line, there are about 951 different ways to tackle this problem and they chose the absolutely worst one out of the bunch. That kind of stupidity is legitimately impressive to behold.

> 4. suck it up and delay whatever flight that crew was scheduled for. It sucks, but it was their mistake to overbook and this isn't a safety-critical situation.

Isn't there a good chance this happened anyway? I heard the plane was grounded for 2 hours.

United might not have gotten their crew there in time to fly the next day given legal rest requirements, in which case a whole planeload of people (and possibly more, due to knock-on effects) might have been denied a flight.

There was no reason for this to even get to a point where physically removing a passenger who did nothing wrong was necessary. There was a very simple solution here: United wanted 4 seats, offered some vouchers, and got no takers. At that point, you start sweetening the deal for giving up your seat until you get some takers. I guarantee it wouldn't have taken much.

You beat them senseless! No need to increase the incentives. Same should apply in employment contracts: Hey, Joe, listen here! I need to randomly cut your pay and if you don't take it I have security nearby to convince you!

What else can you do?! Am I right?!

Isn't that what we used to do with striking employees?

If you pay me then you can come. It is called AirBnb. If you show up, settle in and then see me coming to you and asking you to go out since I need to use the room for myself for the night. Business-related stuff, you understand.

How do you feel? It is dark, rainy and tomorrow at 8 you have a job interview in the city.

You better pack up nicely and quickly, because I'll call the cops otherwise.

Let me know if you feel like you'd understand the situation.

> So what do you do when someone refuses to leave?

They should not get into this situation. At ALL. They should, like they normally do, handle overbooking at the boarding stage -- by either offering compensation or by issuing IDB checks to people they choose to prevent from boarding.

What happened is major mistake and is morally despicable. I hope the passenger gets punitive damages.

> So what do you do when someone refuses to leave?

Pay another airline to ship your employees. This is nothing but horrible planning on United's part. Worst case: Google Maps says a 5-hour drive separates Chicago from Louisville.

What you do when someone refuses to leave their seat?

In the free market, you offer enough money until someone decides that the offer is good enough. Everybody has a price.

In a fascist place, you call the thugs to punch an asian doctor unconscious, so that he can be dragged away from his (paid) seat, so that employees can take their (free) seats

Raise the offer from $800, which is a low amount for an airline overbooking.

Reverse auction.

Ok, we're offering $10,000 to anyone who gets off.

I see twenty hands and we only need four.

How about $8,000, ok, down to 19 hands.

10 minutes later, and they probably would have ended up paying LESS than $800/seat.

What is to stop the four "winners" of this auction demanding more money? (Apart from the threat of assault of course!)

"Hey, so, these four are being jerks, so we're starting over again, but they're not allowed to participate."

So they're guaranteed a seat on the flight? Sounds like a winning strategy for them.

Everyone gets a seat on the flight, except those volunteering to leave for the incentive...

In this hypothetical scenario, they were already guaranteed a seat on the plane.

From what I've read. Passengers offered $1500 to leave but the employees scoffed at that. Not sure how true though.

"Yeah, we're not doing that. We're canceling your ticket. You're now trespassing." seems like the attitude taken here.

I've also read that it typically comes in the form of dozens of $100 flight vouchers that can't be used in combination. The compensation is essentially the airline printing their own money.

I think the max that an airline can compensate people for an oversold flight is $1000 plus lodging.

USD 1350.

DOT, Air passenger "Bill of Rights"

https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/fly-rights#Overbo...

> If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally), or if the airline does not make any substitute travel arrangements for you, the compensation doubles (400% of your one-way fare, $1350 maximum).

You are correct

Where does that constraint come from? Is that self imposed?

Why should he leave in the first place?

Pick them up and carry them out. If necessary, bring in more people so that you can pick them up and carry them out without hurting them.