Physician removed forcibly from United flight after overbooking--UPDATED

[CajunBlazer]

187. Before we jump on the passenger, let's remember why airlines overbook

They overbook for one reason and one reason only - money. They want to fly with the maximum number of passengers so they can make the maximum amount of money from each flight. They know that on every flight some people will not show up, will take a later flight or will cancel. So they overbook and all too often they get caught and too many people show up.

In such cases, they offer incentives such as money, flights etc. Usually they get enough volunteers to take a later flight without too much incentive offered. If they don't get the volunteers they need they up the incentive until they do.

I bet that on this flight they reached the maximum allowed incentives that United authorizes their representatives to pay (they don't want to lose too much money) so their people had to resort to throwing people off of the plane.

This was United's fault plain and simple. The passenger was well within his rights to refuse; United breached a contract with him. I guarantee that if they would have offered enough money, someone would have volunteered, but again corporate decided that they wouldn't pay over a certain amount for their mistake of over booking. Well, they are going to pay now, through the nose. I hope he sues the shit out of them.