General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I refuse to "voluntarily" give up a seat I have paid for, and am, in fact, occupying, and some [View all]OrwellwasRight
(5,170 posts)Look up the definitions.
Also, just because a decision can be made does not mean a decision should be made. United made a stupid decision and was well within its rights to be so stupid.
The better decision would have been to:
Not load the plane until it had worked this out; or
keep offering higher cash compensation until it had volunteers.
It chose neither. Instead, it tried to take seats away from poeple who already had filled them. Of course it would have to pay more than normal to get those seats. This is called the status quo effect. Once you are in the seat, it is more valuable to you than the hypothetical seat you ate not in yet. Nut United chose to be cheap because it legally could . Now it looks vicious and foolish and all it has going for it is your not very convincing defense that it was only exercising its rights.