Merriam-Webster trolls United for use of ‘volunteer’ in statement after passenger dragged off flight.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary trolled a statement United Airlines issued Monday after a passenger was violently dragged off an overbooked flight.
The dictionary company pointed to the use of “volunteer” in the airline’s statement. “‘Volunteer’ means “someone who does something without being forced to do it,'” it tweeted.
📈'Volunteer' means “someone who does something without being forced to do it.” https://t.co/qNAcMyplhZ
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) April 11, 2017
“Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked. After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate,” a United spokesman said in a statement. “We apologize for the overbook situation.
The dictionary said searches for the word “volunteer” spiked 1900 percent on Monday.
ht/ waitforit
United sure porked the pup this time. That stunningly ugly viral video ought to result in immediate firings.
What is United Airlines slogan again?
Oh, yeah: “Fly the Friendly Skies”
Atrocious. He’ll sue and win big. Airline ground agents are empowered to offer whatever incentives it takes to get actual VOLUNTEERS to give up seats.
There has to be quite an error chain of airline/police stupidity here to have escalated to this extreme.
Agents should have offered freebies (future free flights, which actually cost an airline nothing) until they got actual volunteers.
And the O’Hare Chicago PD clearly overreacted. He was no threat to anyone, so no cause for arrest or force.
As many commenters in other sites have noted, what the airport police SHOULD have done was ackniwledge that the airline was experiencing a private civil contractual dispute with a paying customer over agreed upon services. They should have stood by to maintain order, but resolving the issue was between the airline and its customer.
BTW, overbooking is an anachronism from the 1960s/70s when passengers made reservations by phone, then paid for tickets on arrival at the airport. It compensated for no-shows. Since everyone now pays in full upfront online at time of booking, the airline knows precisely how many seats are unsold/available.
Overbooking is now a deliberate profit center, at customer’s expense. I’m fine with it now being outlawed through regulation.
And airlines should stop hiring the cheapest possible employees for the frontline. All this started with idiot ground agents who made a series of Bad Calls, then doubled down as their bad call blew up in their faces.
They did offer freebies. They started at a free flight and $400.00 credit. Went up to a free flight $800.00 credit and a free hotel room. This guy was a freak. But he was a freak that paid for his ticket. The reason 4 people had to be. Upped is a United Flight crew at the last minute showed up and needed to fly to get to their plane. When I use to fly, I’ve had several bad experiences on United. If I flew, I’d.never fly united again.
That was the worst handling of a public relations issue you can imagine. What the heck were they thinking? And the CEO didn’t help with his lame ass statement either. “Re-accommodate”? WTF? Did he call Bill Clinton’s lawyer to invent a new word for breach of contract and assault?
Tom Sullivan covered this on his show today. The Flight Crew that jumped on at the last minutes next flight isn’t until tomorrow. The drive time between the two airports was under 4 hours.
joe6pack nailed it. The United CEO should have just said, “Our bad.” It would have made more sense.
Joe6Pak
I have located a United Airlines training video and this explains a lot.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FNkpIDBtC2c
I once gotta fly first class from Atlanta to
Honolulu for the same reason. Best flight EVAH!
All the food and drinks I could stomach.
Whiny bitches, I think it’s funny, but it’s gonna
cost the airline a lot of money.
Let’s see how many MULTIPLES of $800 it costs United to resolve this case.
I don’t know what’s more discouraging.
The fact that airlines can forcibly remove you from a flight.
Or the fact that so many people had to look up the word “volunteer” in the dictionary.
I didn’t know Merriam-Webster was a living, breathing legal force. I thought it was a dictionary.
Are there regulations in place where once a person is asked to exit the plane for any reason, but refuses, they can be removed by force?
I noticed the woman that was so upset didn’t offer to get off the plane in his place.
You actually had the power to stop the debacle, lady. Why didn’t you if it bothered you so much?
I learned a new word yesterday: “reaccomodated”
I think it means, “Hotel, jail or hospital, but not home. Your choice.”
Why have a lottery? I’m sure their were a few women wearing yoga pants on that flight.
Achtung, I vant yu to volunteer for this most dangeros mission!
Overbooking a flight is not a rare thing. The airlines know how many seats they have and deliberately sell more than are available. How is that not fraud?
If anyone needs to consult a dictionary, it is the CEO of the airline. A little remedial math might help as well.
The floggings will continue until moral improves.
We need some ‘volunteers’ step forward folks, don’t be shy now.
You, the Chin in the glasses, you’ll do, step forward.
I identify as a black transgender next time I fly.
Or perhaps I identify as seat 32B?
If these assholes just watched one episode of Let’s Make A Deal they would see how little it takes to buy some people off.
This is the sort of thing that should give The Prinxesses of The Progtards nightmares. Not the “literally fascist” attacks by their mercenaries. That’s all good. But the trolling by the morlocks? When you hold a revolver to your own head, and announce “One more microaggression, and The Center of The Universe gets it!”, and know that even if all the little people that you “care, so much, about” join you in solidarity, the mess will still be mopped up before it starts to smell, because some of those “people” who know how to bucket are deplorable? That’s not a threat you want to be called on.