Airline seats (or not, as the case might be)

I believe the Tokyo Convention of 1963 still applies, or at least, still applies to those countries that are signed up to ICAO.

Captain's authority in flight, on an international flight, is similar to that of a ship's captain. It is very extensive and covers more than simply the safety of the aircraft, passengers and crew. Anybody restrained however, is handed over to other authorities after landing, which could well be following a diversion resulting in inconvenience to said passenger, if nothing else.

I'm not sighted as to when Dr Dao was asked to leave, or by whom. And it is now clear that it was an internal USA flight, as opposed to an international flight. Different rules apply in some countries on internal flights.

Regardless of whether the Captain had the authority to ask him to leave, the subsequent method employed was, IMHO, completely inappropriate. And the airline would have done better to sort out the over-booking prior to boarding, and in any event, by auctioning alternative compensation.

I assume that Dr Dao will seek legal advice and probably sue the airline and/or the airport security agency for $$millions. And, again IMHO, quite rightly so.

I thought a ship's captain's authority applied once the ship had put to sea. While docked in harbour I thought the jurisdiction of the local police/law applied.  So if the same principle applies to aircraft, is there a question mark over the captain's all-powerful authority applying while the plane is still on the ground and attached to the finger for embarking passengers?  

Hi Mike,

You could well be correct. That is why I referred to an "International Flight" in my comparison.

On domestic flights, captains have similar authorities, but do vary in detail in some countries.

The captain has to provide a Mandatory Occurrence Report for any accident or serious incident from the time an aircraft is boarded with the intention of flight, until the last person leaves. I would have to check my facts, but on this basis, I think it is probable that he would have authority to ask a passenger to leave and to treat that passenger as "disruptive" should he fail to leave. To deal with a disruptive passenger on the ground he would best ask for police/security assistance. In the air, he would, for example, call for cabin crew assistance.

Not all airports have airbridges, some still use steps. So "connection" to a finger might not be a criteria.

The law keeps changing and has done over the 50+ years that I have been flying. I have reached the stage where if it doesn't affect me or my students, directly, I don't even try to keep up to date !!

Thanks, Don. All that makes sense to me. Whatever the legal authority, though, I think we're all agreed that United made one hell of a cock-up in their handling of this over-booked flight.   Being right in the eyes of the law won't be much consolation to the airline and CEO if the court-of-public-opinion sees the airline as having behaved appallingly.   

MDS posted:

Thanks, Don. All that makes sense to me. Whatever the legal authority, though, I think we're all agreed that United made one hell of a cock-up in their handling of this over-booked flight.   Being right in the eyes of the law won't be much consolation to the airline and CEO if the court-of-public-opinion sees the airline as having behaved appallingly.   

I think it's incidents like this that lead to changes in the law and, just as importantly, influence how the law is upheld in future.

It would be wrong to expect the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction ie to the point where an airline simply couldn't resolve an over-booked situation, but I rather suspect that for the next few weeks/months, compensation offerings will be substantially higher across a significant number of airlines. And again when Dr Dao's brings his case to court.

It might be that the Montreal Convention of 1972 is more applicable. However, the conventions were designed to deal with threats and disruption initiated by passengers and/or terrorists.

They weren't designed to deal with Airline self-induced disruption caused by over-booking or insensitive CEOs !! !

I see Easyjet were doing their version over the weekend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39620088

And Air Canada did the same to a 10 year old boy http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39631049

I see they will now offer up to $10,000 per bump. Clearly they realise that everyone has a price and this is probably it!

Peter Dinh posted:

UA reaches a settlement with David Dao, I have been wondering how much he gets? Maybe 50 M?

That will just be for his legal team.