Physician removed forcibly from United flight after overbooking--UPDATED

[jberryhill]

361. You don't seem to understand the answer

No one had to "get to bed in under two hours".

United had a crewless plane in Chicago (or was soon to be crewless). Last Thursday's weather events caused thousands of flight cancellations and when that happens, personnel get scattered out of synch with the schedule all over the place. United's main hub is Chicago, and it is likely that they needed every 10-hour-rested crew on a plane asap to make up for all of the cancellations that left people out of synch with the flight schedule.

The flight from Louisville to Chicago only takes one hour and twenty five minutes.

If they had a fresh pilot in Louisville, then they could get that pilot to Chicago with a half hour to spare.

It's really not a question of "planning" because extreme weather events like the tail end of last week are difficult to plan around, but part of the way they restore the schedule to normal operation is by managing the crew rest schedules against the flight schedules. When extreme weather happens, they have to do that with hundreds of people responsible for thousands of flights.