United Passengers Revolt After Stranded for 3 Days in China

United Passengers Revolt After Stranded for 3 Days in China

abcnews.go.com

A United Airlines flight from Shanghai, China, to New Jersey should have taken just 13 hours, but it took some folks three days to make that trip, after a firestorm of protests, threats, even violence.

United Flight 87 was scheduled to leave Shanghai Wednesday and bring 225 passengers to Newark Airport in New Jersey. The flight didn't land until Saturday morning after three days of cancellations, causing tense moments between passengers and United Airlines.

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This is kind of scary apparently the passengers after wanting for three days in china decided to stage a revolt airport attendants also grabbed a passenger and started slapping him

This is why we should stop flying with crazy things like this happening abcnews.go.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Edit: My computer is acting funny and i cant put any links in right now

Shanghaid in Shanghai...

reply to post by ninjas4321

its no longer safe to fly

I would have to disagree, the reason the flights were cancelled were due to safety, the first and second being due to maintenance and the third because the pilots had timed out. Personally, I would want the aircraft I was flying in from China to the U.S. to be perfectly sound as well as the pilots getting me there.

If anything would be unsafe in this equation it would be having to endure this delay with seemingly irrational and impatient people. Understandably 3 days is a bit excessive and I am sure many of them had places to be, but to resort to a revolt seems a tad excessive in the grand scheme.

The Airline was even waiting at the gate when they arrived in Newark with $1000 travel vouchers to at least attempt some form of compensation so to me, with what I saw/read it seems like the Airline wasn't necessarily the enemy. I guess I would have had to be in the situation, but I can say with assurance that I don't believe I personally would have resorted to violence regarding the matter.

ETA: S&F for posting the story.

Well, this is a U.S. Carrier whether they are in Shanghai or Seattle. Regulation can be handy at times, I suppose.... This would be a great time to suggest that U.S. carriers booking flights interntionally be required to either move another aircraft at their loss, if necessary, or book onto other flights without additional fees of any kind beyond a set time. 24hrs would sound about right to me, with the sole exception being a condition effecting all airlines at that spot.

See how fast airlines make sure this never happens twice after they have to deadhead a plane in or they absorb whatever the fees and gotcha charges may be between carriers like that.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Their costs for this will already be astronomical & they DO work their damndest to make sure it happens as little as possible.

Think about it - the plane is not available for 3 days - now many other pax were delayed & had to be compensated? What effort had to go into rescheduling other flights? Shipping spares and crews to China or bringing them in onto duty costs, compensating passengers costs.

If you think airlines just shrug these things off with a "who cares" attitude you are dreaming. I worked in an airline where they "costed" every single delay longer than 15 minutes - as soon as it hit 16 minutes the starting cost was $5000 for a 19 seater turbo-prop, and on upwards from there - just from the minimum subsequent schecule disruption.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

Well, you may have points in what you're saying. There are always two sides to everything, I suppose. I'd imagine the people spending 3 waiting in Shanghai weren't thinking much about two sides though.

I'm not looking at this as isolated as these failures rarely are. One off? Sure... The first delay? Fine...Fine...Things happen. 2nd? 3rd? Yeah, I'm thinking back to a long line of stories, videos and demands for passenger rights in being held on planes, at gates and in airports for the same range of issues.

I have limited sympathy in many cases as we can all learn to wait sometimes and a hard backed chair never killed anyone for one night. Builds character. My amusement would turn on a dime when U.S. Airport becomes Airport in a far off nation with nothing but someone telling me a plane will be along eventually......ad naseum. Location makes all the difference for degree of bad, to my thinking.

So many directions to go with this:

1. People gets nuts at the airports. 'I paid good money to the airline now I demand all laws of physics be suspended so I can get home to Schenectady in time for CSI'.

2. Where would have they gone had their insurrection been successful?

3. Back in the day it would take like 3+ months to get from China to the US. 3 days ain't do bad.

4. I would get homicidal too if all was left to eat for three days was $8 dollar a cup of coffee and $12 day-old sandwiches.

Wrabbit & Abnarty - both very true!

they should have flown in another jet to take passengers to tohyo or b booked tghem on alternate carrier in first class at there cost or c pt them up in best shang hai hotels and gie them a total refund for their screw up