A couple of years ago, I dropped my brother and his family off at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) for the first leg of a long flight to Toronto. On my return, I stopped at a wayside hotel to have a cup of tea when my cell phone rang. It was my brother and I thought he was phoning me to say that he got through to the departure lounge. “Hi, I have been off-loaded, but don’t worry, we got a hotel for the night,” he told me.
That night itself, I did some research and found that off-loading or in more common parlance “bumping off” paying passengers was a fairly common practice in the commercial aviation industry. How does this happen ? There are two cardinal principles in commercial aviation: A) keep your plane in the air as much as possible and B) fill every seat. The first would be useless if there are not enough passengers. So almost all airlines sell more tickets to every flight than they can actually accommodate. In other words, if there are 244 seats on a plane, the airline may sell 250 tickets.
What’s the catch ? Well, there are often no-shows or people who do not turn up for their flight. If six people do not turn up for the above flight, the airline can still fill all the seats because they have overbooked. This is a common trick in the airline business. But, what happens when everyone turns up ? Some passengers obviously have to be removed. Airlines often sweeten the deal by paying compensation, providing a hotel, upgrading to business/first on the next flight etc to the passengers who are “bumped off”. However, sometimes paying passengers are also forced to relinquish their seats to airline staffers going on urgent assignments.
Randomly picked
This is what happened on the recent United Airlines Flight 3411 from Chicago O’ Hare to Louisville. The airline found that it had to transport four workers of a partner airline. Since no one took up the offer of voluntarily giving up their seats in return for compensation, the airline’s computer randomly picked four passengers to be taken off the plane.
Three passengers complied and left, while the fourth, Dr. David Dao (69) refused. There was a verbal tussle, security officers were called in and they dragged Dao away from the plane, screaming.
The problem for United was that several passengers were filming the entire episode on their phones. Their posts soon went viral.
The video sparked outrage around the world but United CEO Oscar Munoz compounded the problem by initially defending his staff and calling Dr. Dao “belligerent”. By the time he realised his mistake and apologized to Dr. Dao on television, it was too late. During the television interview on April 12, Munoz announced that effective immediately, United Airlines would no longer use police in involuntary bumping situations: “We’re not going to put a law enforcement official... [onto a United aircraft] to remove a booked, paid, seated passenger.” He apologized to Dao and his family and said, “That is not who our family at United is. You saw us at a bad moment; this will never happen again on a United Airlines flight. “ United is now facing one of its biggest PR scandals in several decades as well as a possible lawsuit. Munoz was denied a scheduled promotion to Chairman.
The most ironic thing about the whole incident is that United was well within its rights to remove booked passengers from the flight. It was just not carried out well. As US President Donald Trump told an interviewer after this incident, there will be a price (compensation) point at which some passengers will leave a fully booked flight. If no one leaves for US$ 1,000, someone will leave for US$ 2,000. But dragging a passenger off should be simply unthinkable. In any case, they are not supposed to evict passengers by force.
Most passengers do not know a lot about their rights, a point which is exploited by airlines. The next time you are sitting in a plane and they want some passengers to vacate their seats, you can do one of two things: Accept a reasonable compensation offer or just hold onto your seat. No one can force you off the seat.
This incident has brought into focus the wider issue of customer care by airlines, both, on the ground and in the air. Usually, it is the “cattle class” passengers in the back of the plane who suffer the most as flight crew usually do not usually dare to upset the customers in Business and First. In an age where Ultra Low Cost Carriers (ULCC) charge passengers for baggage and even a cold sandwich, it is not perhaps surprising that the customer comes last. Just a few days after the Dao incident, another incident was reported from an American Airlines flight, where a flight attendant was seen threatening a young mother and another passenger who came to her defence. The attendant has since been fired.
One thing is certain: the airlines cannot simply get away when they treat customers rudely, thanks to the power of smartphones and social media.
Within only a few minutes of such an incident, practically everyone on the planet sees the video twice over. This is why airlines must be extra cautious when dealing with customers. Yes, there are customers who cause trouble. They may be drunk, angry, irritated, sad, emotional or even hungry. But even then, the crew has to follow established protocols. It is possible to evict passengers who cause trouble or threaten staff or other passengers, but even this should be done in a wise manner. The safety and security of all passengers and crew must always be the priority.
Great danger
Some ULCCs have been found breaking ‘compulsory rest’ rules for flight crew due to cost restraints. But this makes the crew tired and irritated, which could translate into bad encounters with passengers in addition to passing a great danger to flight safety. Flying is still the safest mode of transport with only a few hundred fatalities each year after millions of commercial flights, so airlines and flight crew have to keep it that way.
The type of incidents outlined above can erode confidence in the entire airline industry and passengers may opt for other modes of (surface) transport where possible and available, such as within the US and Europe.
But flying is still the only viable option for linking many city pairs. Going from Colombo to New York ? There is no other way. When you are settled into your seat for a long-haul flight, you expect a good service from the cabin crew. Providing that must be the aim of every airline worker, from the ramp handler to the Captain.