Corporate Behavior
Airline payouts

United Airlines Paid a Passenger $10,000 to Give Up Her Seat. The Question Is Why ... Why was this offer so high?

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

United Airlines Paid a Passenger $10,000 to Give Up Her Seat. The Question Is Why Why was this offer so high?


That was a lot of money to solve a problem. CREDIT: Getty Images

Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

Allison Preiss is managing director of communications for the Center for American Progress.

On Thursday, however, she was witness to the Center for United Progress.

There she was, ready to board an early morning United flight from Washington Dulles International Airport to Austin. She was heading for her friend's bachelorette party.

Suddenly, the potential for regress.

United needed a volunteer to give up their seat.

Let's hear the story in Preiss's own words.

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss .@united offering $1K in travel credit for an oversold flight. If nobody bites, they will kick off the lowest fare passenger by pulling them out of the boarding line. For a flight that THEY oversold. Unreal.

8:19 AM - Mar 22, 2018 3,687 887 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy And guess who turned out to be the lowest fare passenger? Preiss herself.

Things became bumpy. First, she says she was offered this explanation.

22 Mar Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss Replying to @allisonmpreiss They are kicking me off this flight. Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss They can’t board me on this plane because there is a broken seat.

8:37 AM - Mar 22, 2018 1,570 181 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy Like many a traveler might in such circumstances, she expressed herself pithily. 22 Mar

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss Replying to @allisonmpreiss They can’t board me on this plane because there is a broken seat.

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss .@united IS THE WORST.

8:40 AM - Mar 22, 2018 2,615 383 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy And then, a curious development.

22 Mar

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss Replying to @allisonmpreiss .@united IS THE WORST.

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss .@united tried to get me to sign a document that says I volunteered my seat on this plane when I was involuntarily denied boarding. Sketchy af.

8:55 AM - Mar 22, 2018 2,845 482 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

Here's where things get very, very curious.

NBC Washington reports that the gate agents offered Preiss a $2,000 travel voucher.

She reportedly preferred cold, hard, dependable lucre. Who can blame her? So the airline offered $650.

Suddenly, though, there came another offer from the airline. It was rather larger.

22 Mar

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss Replying to @allisonmpreiss .@united tried to get me to sign a document that says I volunteered my seat on this plane when I was involuntarily denied boarding. Sketchy af.

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss They really do not want to give me cash. They just offered me $10,000 in travel credit. TEN THOUSAND.

9:02 AM - Mar 22, 2018 2,586 469 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy Preiss even posted proof of her prize. 22 Mar

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss Replying to @allisonmpreiss They really do not want to give me cash. They just offered me $10,000 in travel credit. TEN THOUSAND.

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss This is how badly United didn’t want to give me cash: pic.twitter.com/sI7vmbeB2Q 9:12 AM - Mar 22, 2018

2,709 558 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy This all seems quite odd.

Why would the airline suddenly raise its offer to the maximum? The $10,000 figure for bumping a passenger was announced by the airline after the now seminal incident involving Dr. David Dao being bumped and then dragged down the aisle of a United plane. Oddly, Preiss tweeted about that, too. 22 Mar Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss Replying to @allisonmpreiss .@united tried to get me to sign a document that says I volunteered my seat on this plane when I was involuntarily denied boarding. Sketchy af.

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss On the upside, I wasn’t physically dragged off the plane and my dog wasn’t killed on board, so I’ve got that going for me...which is nice.

8:57 AM - Mar 22, 2018 1,013 171 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

I asked the airline why it had suddenly become astoundingly generous. What was it about this passenger that required the maximum offer? I will update, should I hear.

The San Francisco Chronicle's Chris McGinnis says the airline confirmed to him that Preiss was garlanded with the large amount.

Preiss, though, offered a couple more twists to her tale.

22 Mar

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss Replying to @allisonmpreiss

This is how badly United didn’t want to give me cash: pic.twitter.com/sI7vmbeB2Q

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss I also got two $10 meal vouchers. I am going to go INSANE at Pizza Hut

9:26 AM - Mar 22, 2018 4,599 335 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy Pizza Hut? At that time of the morning?

Wait, but surely they'd also offer someone they'd just given $10,000 to a seat in a lovely lounge.

Allison Preiss @allisonmpreiss despite this, the airline held pretty firm on not giving me lounge access for the day ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://twitter.com/allisonmpreiss/status/976808960262131712 …

9:52 AM - Mar 22, 2018 125 45 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy

I tell the story in Preiss's own words because it all seems slightly incomprehensible.

It's true that Delta Air Lines did give a woman $4,000 to get bumped from a flight departing Atlanta for South Bend, Indiana.

In her case, though, there was at least an auction-style gradual raising of the offer.

Here, it seems that from a relatively low beginning, the offer soared to the top.

Could it be that the gate agents were desperate to get the flight into the air on a snowy day, so there was no time for messing around?

It's tempting to believe that someone at United was so frightened of yet more bad publicity that they tried to turn this incident into a tale of United's maximal generosity.

I'll conclude on an optimistic note. United Airlines made an unhappy passenger happy.

Indeed, if you're wondering what Preiss might do with the voucher, she told my colleague Bill Murphy Jr.: 'Haven't figured out what I'll use it for yet, but I'm told first class to Hawaii or Europe is pretty nice. Funny thing is, I'm normally kind of a bargain flyer. I guess that's how I ended up the lowest fare passenger!'

A happy ending.

Isn't that the maximum the airline could have hoped for?

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.