Althouse: United Airlines — now, with scorpions.

April 13, 2017

United Airlines — now, with scorpions.

"It's not clear how the scorpion got on the plane...."

Probably by bumping some lesser arachnid.

54 comments:

Balfegor said...: One time, someone sitting next to me in a business class seat on a United 777 had what looked like a tiny cockroach wander out of the armrest. Not as bad as a scorpion, but distressing nevertheless. She (? I think -- I might have done it but I doubt it) smushed it in a napkin and gave it to the cabin attendant. Maybe they gave her miles in compensation. I didn't get any that time.; 4/13/17, 4:44 PM
buwaya said...: It's not clear how the scorpion got on the plane...."

"Probably by bumping some lesser arachnid."

That made me laugh! Unusually. Good job!; 4/13/17, 4:45 PM
Meade said...: Creeps.; 4/13/17, 4:46 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Probably someone's comfort scorpion.; 4/13/17, 4:46 PM
Meade said...: "Probably by bumping some lesser arachnid."

Yeah, like some crybaby tick.; 4/13/17, 4:47 PM
Pianoman said...: And all of this could have been avoided had they just bumped the good doctor BEFORE boarding the plane.

Do things in the proper order, and life is a lot less complicated.

For example: Put down the mug, and THEN pour the coffee.

UAL down 4.1% since IT happened.; 4/13/17, 4:51 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Interesting USA Today update on the original United story:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/04/13/united-airlines-david-dao-family-press-conference/100409492/

To me the biggest thing:

He was travelling with his wife. That puts a whole other perspective on being bumped.

And the injuries were in no way minor.; 4/13/17, 4:54 PM
mockturtle said...: I listened with interest to the presser today. United is going to be hurtin' for certain.; 4/13/17, 4:55 PM
Hagar said...: Again. United only asked to have the unruly person removed. The Chicago airport police did the deed.; 4/13/17, 4:59 PM
mockturtle said...: Probably by bumping some lesser arachnid.

Great line, Ann! :-D; 4/13/17, 5:01 PM
tcrosse said...: United will be compensating all passengers on that flight. Does this give the appearance of paying off witnesses ?; 4/13/17, 5:02 PM
mockturtle said...: Hagar, this was not an unruly person. Unless you consider Rosa Parks an 'unruly person'.; 4/13/17, 5:02 PM
mockturtle said...: United will be compensating all passengers on that flight. Does this give the appearance of paying off witnesses ?

Shit, yeah! But the metaphorical toothpaste is out of the tube.; 4/13/17, 5:03 PM
Bob Boyd said...: The way it's going at United the scorpion will probably turn out to have had rabies.; 4/13/17, 5:03 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Complain about the comfort scorpion and face a civil rights lawsuit.; 4/13/17, 5:04 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: After the bumping debacle maybe they decided to get people to leave the plane by loosing scorpions.; 4/13/17, 5:05 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Blood in the water. Now the opportunists and pranksters are going to be coming out the woodwork.

"There's a tiny dead frog in my salad."

"I got head lice from the earphones"

"Somebody super-glued the toilet seat and my once flawless derriere is now horribly scared and my marriage is off."; 4/13/17, 5:14 PM
RBE said...: On return from the Bahamas a scorpion stung my daughter while sitting in a restaurant at Kennedy airport. Don't know if it came attached to us or to our bags from the overhead bins.; 4/13/17, 5:16 PM
tcrosse said...: Would the Fearless Girl have allowed herself to be dragged off a plane by corporate myrmidons ? Or would she have put her hands on her hips, thrust out her chest, and stood forthright in the aisle ?; 4/13/17, 5:19 PM
cubanbob said...: Maybe God is sending UAL a message.; 4/13/17, 5:33 PM
tcrosse said...: Maybe God is sending UAL a message.

Frogs are next.; 4/13/17, 5:38 PM
mockturtle said...: After the bumping debacle maybe they decided to get people to leave the plane by loosing scorpions.

Gosh, Freeman! What a great idea! Or maybe they could play Barry Manilow albums.; 4/13/17, 5:41 PM
Darrell said...: Again. United only asked to have the unruly person removed. The Chicago airport police did the deed.

Nah. Airline rent-a-cops. Ever see a Chicago cop wearing blue jeans?; 4/13/17, 5:56 PM
Darrell said...: More surprises from Mexico. Undocumented scorpions.; 4/13/17, 5:58 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: "Nah. Airline rent-a-cops. Ever see a Chicago cop wearing blue jeans?"

The goons United called in were government employees. City of Chicago will be a defendant.; 4/13/17, 6:02 PM
FullMoon said...: Unknown said... [hush][hide comment]

To me the biggest thing:

He was travelling with his wife. That puts a whole other perspective on being bumped.

And the injuries were in no way minor.

Should not separate families, not sure I believe extent of injuries.

Interestingly, just read a Reddit thread about terrible customers from waiters/waitresses point of veiw. Over a thousand comments about a hole customers. I imagine most of these Redditors are on side of "poor United guy" without even thinking about circumstances.; 4/13/17, 6:10 PM
Balfegor said...: Re: FullMoon:

Should not separate families, not sure I believe extent of injuries.

It's pretty easy to get a lot of injuries if you throw a fit in a confined space full of bumpable surfaces -- like an airplane interior -- and you then have to be subdued by force.

The man seems like the second worst sort of airplane passenger (the worst is the ones who get drunk and then throw a fit; the third worst is people who clearly haven't bathed; after that is children who kick the seat in front of them) but I don't find serious injuries at all unbelievable. He's a 60-year old man throwing a tantrum and getting dragged out like a toddler. That is very rough on an aging body.; 4/13/17, 6:22 PM
FullMoon said...: Blogger Balfegor said...

Re: FullMoon:

Should not separate families, not sure I believe extent of injuries.

It's pretty easy to get a lot of injuries if you throw a fit in a confined space full of bumpable surfaces -- like an airplane interior -- and you then have to be subdued by force.

The man seems like the second worst sort of airplane passenger (the worst is the ones who get drunk and then throw a fit; the third worst is people who clearly haven't bathed; after that is children who kick the seat in front of them) but I don't find serious injuries at all unbelievable. He's a 60-year old man throwing a tantrum and getting dragged out like a toddler. That is very rough on an aging body.

Not a Dr., but broken noses I have seen accompanied by two black eyes. We ised to call it "red wagon with two black horses" or something similar.
And, the guy seems to be out of sight for awhile while recuperating. Seems he would be front and center showing damage.; 4/13/17, 6:29 PM
Big Mike said...: Probably by bumping some lesser arachnid.

@Althouse, wonderful. Just wonderful.; 4/13/17, 6:35 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Probably by bumping some lesser arachnid.

That's arachnophobic.; 4/13/17, 6:42 PM
jaed said...: throwing a tantrum and getting dragged out like a toddler

I've had a hard time believing the ugliness of comments like this (comparing him to a toddler), but I've become convinced that they occur because of the visual of his being dragged out by the hands, limp, with his shirt riding up. This is a scenario that—visually at least—reminds any parent of what happens when a two-year-old pitches a fit, you try to pull him out, and end up dragging. The memory evokes exasperation.

However, the parent usually hasn't smashed the toddler's face first, the toddler usually hasn't lost teeth, and toddlers normally aren't unconscious and bleeding when they're being dragged around by their hands. All of which puts a... slightly... different countenance on the scene.; 4/13/17, 6:56 PM
FullMoon said...: jaed said...

///

However, the parent usually hasn't smashed the toddler's face first, the toddler usually hasn't lost teeth, and toddlers normally aren't unconscious and bleeding when they're being dragged around by their hands. All of which puts a... slightly... different countenance on the scene.
4/13/17, 6:56 PM

Saw three separate vids, missed the one where he was punched in the face. Got a link? Have seen no pic of blood from his broken nose. Got a link? Yhanks in advance.; 4/13/17, 7:32 PM
mockturtle said...: I saw blood on his face in one of the videos.; 4/13/17, 7:47 PM
Balfegor said...: I've had a hard time believing the ugliness of comments like this (comparing him to a toddler),

Let me be uglier. I cannot understand the mental state of a man who, when told to leave the plane, not only refuses (unlike everyone else who had been asked), but forces the cabin crew to call the police, and then literally clings to the plane to prevent them from taking him off. Look, I've never been ordered off a plane before (other than for mechanical and weather issues), but I have missed a lot of flights, had a lot of flights cancelled, been bumped when I was trying to make a tight connection and arrived just after they gave my seat to someone else. I literally cannot understand the kind of mindset that would lead someone to act like that just because he had to miss his flight. There is something deeply wrong with an adult person who would behave that way. Would I be pissy if ordered to leave? Sure -- and I am sure the three people who were told to leave and responded like civilised human beings were pissy. But making a scene like that?? I would be ashamed of myself. It is genuinely disgusting. And I have seen people make scenes like that (although they were too drunk or hysterical to resist when the police came to remove them), which probably heightens my feeling of disgust.

That doesn't mean United was right and it doesn't mean his getting roughed up was proportionate to his offense. The market is speaking, UAL shares are down, and I am sure they have seen a huge drop in bookings. That is capitalism. But I find the hysterical actions of the man in question genuinely revolting. He behaved badly. It doesn't mean he deserved to get bloodied -- he didn't -- but it does leave me disgusted.; 4/13/17, 7:49 PM
Balfegor said...: Let me amend, not sure the instances I am thinking of were police or just airline staff.; 4/13/17, 7:51 PM
Hagar said...: Hagar, this was not an unruly person. Unless you consider Rosa Parks an 'unruly person'.

B.S. Rosa Parks insisted (can't think of a better verb at the moment) on being arrested, but did not throw a tantrum to escalate the situation into a physical altercation.

(What she did was dangerous enough at that time and place, and Rosa Parks knew what she was doing.); 4/13/17, 7:56 PM
Hagar said...: United Airlines makes a better target for a personal injury lawsuit than the City of Chicago; the City will only be named as a party though in fact it should be the primary defendant.; 4/13/17, 8:03 PM
gadfly said...: Seventy passengers on an Amtrak train bound for Indiana were made to sit in a train for nearly seven hours after an engineer reportedly disobeyed a traffic signal and had to undergo a drug test late May 28, 2006 in south suburban Dolton, Ill., according to the Chicago Sun Times.

Train 318, bound from Chicago to Indianapolis, had left Chicago about 7:45 p.m., and then about 9 p.m., stopped unexpectedly in an intersection near Dolton. "We were told that our engineer ran a red light," a passenger said. "They didn’t tell us right away," adding that hours went by where no one on the train knew what was happening, and neither customer service for Amtrak nor local police were very helpful.

Not unlike this incident, frequent delays due to malfunctioning equipment such as frozen toilets, forever waiting on side tracks for freight trains to pass in the busy Chicago area (and elsewhere), and the United Train Union's negotiated work rules that require the Amtrak trains to stop when crews run out of permitted hours until replacement crews can be ferried to the stopped train. Amtrak takes six hours, per schedule to make the trip between downtown Chicago's Union Station to downtown Indy, a three-hour tour on Megabus, whose fares are half as well. Its a strange way of life that is fully accepted by the sparse number of intercity train riders. But airline passengers are another breed.

UA deserved what they got because the fiasco had a simple solution sitting at the O'Hare's General Aviation terminal. Fly the deadheading United Express crew on a small for-hire jet but under no circumstances should boarded and seated passengers be disturbed.; 4/13/17, 8:26 PM
FullMoon said...: mockturtle said...

I saw blood on his face in one of the videos.

Blood from his mouth, not from a broken nose. Doubtful he was punched in the face, no reason to do that at all.; 4/13/17, 8:30 PM
FullMoon said...: UA deserved what they got because the fiasco had a simple solution sitting at the O'Hare's General Aviation terminal. Fly the deadheading United Express crew on a small for-hire jet but under no circumstances should boarded and seated passengers be disturbed.

They should have announced that flight could not take off until passenger got off plane. Other passengers would get fed up with the cry baby inconveniencing them.; 4/13/17, 8:34 PM
gadfly said...: @FullMoon said...

They should have announced that flight could not take off until passenger got off plane. Other passengers would get fed up with the cry baby inconveniencing them.

The doctor had the same right to remain onboard as the other passengers. The seats were needed to fly a UE crew to Louisville so they wouldn't have to cancel a flight the following morning. That makes the problem United's to solve but shitting on passengers who do not volunteer to take compensation will get you sued every time - especially if said passenger gets bloodied by the kindly uniformed airport cops, who in my opinion were helping the airline break the law. BTW, The other passengers saw what was happening and objected.; 4/13/17, 9:03 PM
FullMoon said...: Blogger gadfly said...

@FullMoon said...

They should have announced that flight could not take off until passenger got off plane. Other passengers would get fed up with the cry baby inconveniencing them.

The doctor had the same right to remain onboard as the other passengers. The seats were needed to fly a UE crew to Louisville so they wouldn't have to cancel a flight the following morning. That makes the problem United's to solve but shitting on passengers who do not volunteer to take compensation will get you sued every time - especially if said passenger gets bloodied by the kindly uniformed airport cops, who in my opinion were helping the airline break the law. BTW, The other passengers saw what was happening and objected.

Yeah, my point is the airlines did not have to do anything. The passengers would have insisted the guy leave. The passengers did not object to him being selected to exit.They objected to him being dragged off.; 4/13/17, 9:11 PM
Amadeus 48 said...: Reading the responses to this post, I think that "insect politics" has once again crept onto this blog. Time to add the tag!; 4/13/17, 10:06 PM
cubanbob said...: @FullMoon United's problem is not a paying passengers problem. Instead of being cheap bastards, they could have offered enough jingle to get volunteers. Like one dollar less than the ticket revenues of the flight the deadheading crew was heading to. Overselling isn't overbooking. It's a fraud. Paging Bialystock and Bloom.; 4/13/17, 10:18 PM
FullMoon said...: Cubanbob said...

@FullMoon United's problem is not a paying passengers problem. Instead of being cheap bastards, they could have offered enough jingle to get volunteers. Like one dollar less than the ticket revenues of the flight the deadheading crew was heading to. Overselling isn't overbooking. It's a fraud. Paging Bialystock and Bloom.

Plenty of ways to avoid the lead up to the problem. Once the guy was selected, to leave according to standard procedure, he became a problem for the rest of the passengers. Three other passengers gave up their seats, per the rules printed on their tickets.

This guy is the person who makes a scene in the restaurant because his coffee is not hot enough.; 4/13/17, 10:52 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: You don't split up a 70 year old couple. That's just crazy (and explains why he came racing back onto the plane); 4/14/17, 12:30 AM
Craig said...: Suspect the facial injuries came from a faceplant on the armrest of the aisle seat opposite to the aisle seat in which he was seated.; 4/14/17, 1:47 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Reading the responses to this post, I think that "insect politics" has once again crept onto this blog. Time to add the tag!"

2 problems with that:

1. It's not politics.

2. It's not an insect.

I love my "insect politics" tag, but part of its magic is the rarity of its appropriateness. I cannot cheapen it with misapplications. Less is more. Don't ask for too much. It will disappoint.; 4/14/17, 8:15 AM
Meade said...: "2. It's not an insect. "

Are you sure? Have you counted the number of its legs? How do you know this particular scorpion isn't a transarthropod?; 4/14/17, 8:23 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I need to be more inclusive.; 4/14/17, 8:24 AM
Just some rando on the interwebz said...: That's where my emotional support scorpion went.; 4/14/17, 8:28 AM
Thrasymachus said...: "In Economy Class, United's passengers receive solid, low-cost beatings priced fit your family's budget, while our Business Class passengers can savor an exotic array of personalized, expertly curated misery solutions designed to surprise and impress even the most discerning and seasoned palettes.

Either way, our hope is that you will have as much fun enjoying the torments that you suffer at our hands as much as we enjoyed creating them. We look forward to having you aboard!*"

*Disclaimer: boarding, seating, takeoff, landing at your chosen destination not guaranteed. "Aboard" may refer (without limitation) to a non-flying conveyance such as an ambulance, police car, or hearse. Likewise "We" does not necessarily refer to United. "You" may refer, at our discretion to any portion of you that we may choose to designate, which may comprise a part of your body as small as a finger or even just a fraction of your blood.; 4/14/17, 9:22 AM
David Baker said...: While y'all are yucking it up over seat-bugs...

I believe the case of KELO v. CITY of NEW LONDON (545 U.S. 469), wherein the Supreme Court firmly established the corporate right to choose one private citizen over another - known as "corporate selection" /or/ colloquially as "survival of the fittest" - will absolve United Airlines in the matter of over/or/under-booking.; 4/14/17, 10:36 AM
Maya S said...: Hilarious. Clapping.; 4/14/17, 11:16 AM

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