They may deny boarding. This is the legal term even ("Denied boarding"). That is why they do it prior to boarding the aircraft. You will get "Denied Boarding compensation" (https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/part-250)
Once they have taken your ticket, you have boarded, and have sat down, you may no longer be denied boarding due to oversale.
Heck, once they have taken your ticket and told you you can proceed to board, they can't remove you whether you've gotten on the plane or not.
They may only remove you "due to a safety, security, or health risk, or due to a behavior that is considered obscene, disruptive, or otherwise unlawful"
See, e.g., https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...
Scroll to "Can airlines involuntarily bump me after I have boarded the flight?"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2017/04/14/david-...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/travel/airlines-bumping-r...
First, that particular change was part of the 2018 FAA reauthorization act (congress did it - see https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-115publ254), but they link to the DOT regulations done much later.
It's true it was a response to David Dao.
But it was actually never allowed, even before that. The airlines just liked to argue about it and be a pain in the ass, so they added a line to the law about it.
In the case of David Dao specifically - the flight was not oversold, so they had zero leg to stand on.
(Now, once they asked him to leave, he needs to leave, but they did not have a right to ask him to leave)
I've grown tired of airline and car booking company abuse. I'll notify the appropriate authorites or maybe even sue when I can, thanx to WizzAir, Ryanair, Booking.com and other abusive companies. In the EU it's easier because there's all kinds of consumer protection laws. Vacating seats by force is pretty much unhead of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Express_Flight_3411_inc...
Search for "confidential settlement"
But, would this passenger have acted any differently if they had to ask him to leave under one of the acceptable conditions? Based on his reasoning, I highly doubt it.
It’s not uncommon on the type of aircraft operated by Republic that after boarding, they need to vacate a few seats based on fuel requirements (changing weather). I’ve had times we taxi, then return to the gate to offload passengers because the wind changed directions. I’ve many times seen passengers get upset, but the system the airlines use to select passengers is fairly objective. Based on fare type, when you purchased, etc.
Also, from a legal perspective, once the airline asked him to leave, even if they broke the rules it’s still trespassing. If the airline asks me to leave, I’m not arguing. I leave and handle the situation with customer service. I’ve had this happen. And I’ve been “bumped” incorrectly before, and well compensated after.
Also… I agree with the airlines reasoning that they needed to move a crew. If they can’t position a crew, that’s 150 bumped passengers with a significant domino effect (potentially four or five doctors… that did the right thing and bought the appropriate fares) rather than just four.
A company should deal with its internal processes without making them the client's problem. Put that crew on a different flight, hire a charter for them, plan better next time.
Are you OK with your ISP cutting your internet because the company needs to transfer some important company data? Buy a car but never have it delivered because the company needed to give it to an important person who couldn't wait? A hotel kicks you out of your room because an employee is tired and needs to rest there?
I'm just pointing out he did nothing wrong - the airline retained no right to remove him, and deserves all the ire and lawsuits it gets when it does ;)
Being right but getting your head beat in is .. not winning. Being right but getting on the no fly list is .. not winning. Being right but getting involved in a lawsuit after flying is .. not winning.
How hard was it for Dao to realize there’s no way to come out on top in this immediate situation, and the only logical next move is to comply and use the inconvenience to get something out of the airline?
He would have been wrong to act the same way had the circumstances been different, but then the circumstances were what they were and not something else. People usually behave differently in different circumstances. Unless you are suggesting that he might actually be a primitive automaton, I'm not sure what you are arguing here.
That severely softens your previous line (if not changing the meaning altogether):
> The airline was well within its rights.
It's ok to simply write, "Gee, I didn't consider that. Thanks."
> Generally, no. If you have met the following conditions, airlines are not allowed to deny you permission to board, or remove you from the flight if you have already boarded the flight: You have checked-in for your flight before the check-in deadline set by the airlines; and
>A gate agent has accepted your paper boarding pass or electronically scanned your boarding pass and let you know that you may proceed to board. However, airlines may deny boarding or remove you from a flight even after accepting your boarding pass and informing you that you may proceed to board if the denial or removal is due to a safety, security, or health risk, or due to a behavior that is considered obscene, disruptive, or otherwise unlawful.
They can easily use safety under “weights and balances” as the reason.
You are right that they can lie and claim lots of things to say the person needs to be removed.
It's pretty easy to hold them to account, and consumers have had no trouble suing airlines successfully when necessary.
In the case of "weights and balances", if they falsely remove you for that reason and put some other crew member they need to move on instead, that seems like it would be pretty easy to show is bullshit.
Because you are posting ridiculous comments implying that people have a bunch of rights to do things on a airplane that will end up landing them in jail or with big fines.
Step back and remember that you’re still on private property and the government has taken obscene steps in the industry to protect safety at all costs. There are very narrow rights you have with regard to monetary renumeration which you should leverage whenever you get the chance.
However, refusing to leave a plane when being asked to by the staff is always a losing move. There are no clear punishments for the airline and there are significant outs (“passenger was being unruly”).
> remove you for that reason and put some other crew member they need to move on instead, that seems like it would be pretty easy to show is bullshit.
Not if they bring the crew on, get them seated in jump seats, and then state that some people need to be removed.
This can happen even without manifest changes. If a significant storm pushes into the arrival airport when getting ready to depart it may delay the flight and alter fuel requirements for alternate airports. I’ve been on flights where they had to ask people to deplane in exchange for vouchers just to fly with the seats empty to offset weather range requirements.
The correct answer, as I’ve said repeatedly in this thread, is to hold them to account in court
The rest of your claims and game playing loopholes have not faired well for airlines (or airport security) in court. That is why they settle, often for significant money. Have you bothered to look at the cases? I have.
How would it play out for them to invoke that law disingenuously?
They won't use it to fly with an empty seat, nobody wants that except maybe a couple adjacent passengers who might enjoy the elbow room. The airline certainly doesn't want an empty seat.
If they stated out loud to someone that weight in that seat puts the passengers' lives at risk, then seats another person there, I'd hope the backlash would be instant and severe.
It's only fungible regulation that interferes with an airline's ability to make their own decisions in cases like this.
As a landlord, I can get you out of a building I own at any time (with a court order), unless I have entered into a contract with you, and I am not require to do so.
And the imbalance of power is core here. Boeing resolved the criminal charge related to the 737 MAX scandal by paying $2.5bn. The CEO isn't on a "no freedom list" despite his actions leading to the deaths of 346 people. The CEOs f airlines operating the 737 MAX who were informed by the pilots of the dangers but did not cease flying that plane, endangering tens of thousands. What kind of list should that land them on but didn't?
If you do something on the internet that endangers someone's safety do you go on a national "no internet" list? If you cause an accident on a public road do you go on a "no car/no access to public roads" list?
Yes... a court, almost exclusively as a result of a major crime (hacking or child pornography/pedophilia), and almost always just restricted or supervised access. Delta is a private company looking to impose even harsher blanket bans arbitrarily.
> Again, yes this happens. At least in terms of being a driver.
So it happens but for a completely different use case. Where you just can't operate the vehicle yourself but are freely allowed to use it if operated by someone else or any of the many realistic alternatives.
Being banned from any flight for being a nuisance is nothing like any of those cases. Sometimes there's no realistic alternative to flight due to price or conditions.
> Instead there should be a multi-year ban on flying followed by a lifetime of only being able to fly in physical restraints. By restraints I mean, if not put in a coffin like box and shipped as cargo, then adult diaper, anti-spit hood, straight-jacket and ankle shackles.
My God man, this is deranged! You spent 2 lines being completely wrong about the facts trying to contradict my opinion, and 80% of your comment with a deranged description of how someone should be abused, humiliated, punished, and almost guaranteed killed in case of an accident just for the "privilege" of being on a flight after doing something stupid.
Surely if such punishments were applied every time you did something stupid we would be having a different conversation now. I know because I've seen too many people with "radical" ideas having a moment of enlightenment when being at the wrong end of them.
Did you click through the link? Where it uses the word "convicted" in both the headline and the first paragraph? There's nothing arbitrary about the proposal at all.
>Being banned from any flight for being a nuisance is nothing like any of those cases.
Being on the no fly list only stops you from flying commercially. You're free to fly privately. If it's too expensive, well, flying in general is expensive and lots of people never fly in their lives.
>My God man, this is deranged!
Really? It's not uncommon to restrain people who have engaged in physical violence against others.
>You spent 2 lines being completely wrong about the facts trying to contradict my opinion,
Your opinion is predicated on untruth. And my two lines are fully, factually correct.
>and 80% of your comment with a deranged description of how someone should be abused, humiliated, punished, and almost guaranteed killed in case of an accident just for the "privilege" of being on a flight after doing something stupid.
Yes. Engaging in physical violence against innocent people leading to long term anxiety about air travel and sometimes causing permanent disfigurement is just "doing something stupid."
>Surely if such punishments were applied every time you did something stupid we would be having a different conversation now. I know because I've seen too many people with "radical" ideas having a moment of enlightenment when being at the wrong end of them.
I suspect not. As a functioning adult with a developed prefrontal cortex I've never assaulted anyone. It's not me who has the outrageous idea, it's you. Acting as if you can hit someone and then go on about your life as if you never did is ridiculous. On the other hand hundreds of thousands of people every day fly and they don't hit anyone. The vast majority of people in the US manage to go their entire lives without engaging in unprovoked violence against others at all. Unprovoked violence is not normal and that those who engage in it are not permanently separated from civil society is a courtesy, not a right.
You proposed ridiculously cruel and unusual punishment. A form of torture, clearly endangering that person's life, physical and mental health, that is illegal and immoral anywhere. Something no court would impose on anyone. You took something that the law punishes a certain way and escalated it sky high with an abhorrent, deranged, and disproportionate proposal, an affront to anything legal, moral, or decent.
This kind of extremist views don't exist in a void, they're accompanied sooner or later by equally extreme actions. Your words and view are no different from those of extremists, people who are a danger to society because they eventually act on them.
Here's something factually correct: sometimes people with extremist or deranged views are locked in prison or mental institutions, or at the very least shunned by society.
So I'll say it again, as another factually and morally correct observation: if all your words and actions had been judged with the same exaggerated and deranged punishment scale you would not be here peddling such disgusting ideas. You would not be here at all. And I now believe you should not be here but presumably @dang is a far more lenient person than I (quite the achievement).
I have status on the airline I usually fly on and don't buy "Economy minus" fares. But I certainly don't generally fly business or otherwise pay higher fares because "I'm an adult who has appointments" and my company almost certainly wouldn't reimburse me if I did. And I'm sure that's true for almost everyone.
What no one mentions, is that this guy bought a ticket where the fare rules clearly state your seat is conditional; it was a deeply discounted fare.
If I have something important where I need to be somewhere, I buy a fare that guarantees me a seat. It’s an option you select in nearly every reservation system I’ve used (including the airlines websites).
The airline was well within its rights. If he was a doctor, and it was that important, he should be buying a fare that reflects that and avoid these issues.
He bought the cheapest fare that clearly stated the rules where he would lose his seat under certain conditions, then acted indignant when there were consequences.
The airline asked him to leave, he refused. That’s trespassing, “plane” and simple.
When the police came, he still refused. They arrested him, and he still refused. I’m not really sure how else you remove any trespasser that refuses to comply, without some use of force.
I fly all the time, and I have to buy the more expensive fares because I’m an adult that has appointments. It would make me angry if the airline was prioritizing deeply discounted fares and bumping me instead because of someone’s self-important claims.
Need to be there at a certain time? Buy a real ticket.