Woman sueing airline after falling asleep

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ibonibo
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Something needs to be done about that. It's terrible practice from the stewards and the captain to not make sure everyone is off the flight before leaving it.

However, she does deserve minor compensation for it, if she can prove she missed important meetings/travel connections etc.
 
Maybe she was hiding in an overhead compartment? :lol:

The question is... what is the airline policy?

I'm actually aghast that a cabin crew would simply up and leave a passenger in the cabin. If she couldn't be woken up, most crews would have called security, a doctor... or both.

I'd debate on how much she'd be due... since it's not the airline's job to make sure she keeps her appointments by acting as her personal alarm clock, but management will probably dock or suspend the chief steward(ess) in charge of the flight for such a big oversight.
 
It's far to easy to sue someone or a company in the good ole US of A.... I can understand she's frustrated, but sueing the airline is going a little bit far... If I were in that situation I would just keep nagging the airline company until they gave me some sort of compensation for not waking me up and getting me safely off the plane.
 
Blitz187
It's far to easy to sue someone or a company in the good ole US of A.... I can understand she's frustrated, but sueing the airline is going a little bit far... If I were in that situation I would just keep nagging the airline company until they gave me some sort of compensation for not waking me up and getting me safely off the plane.
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Can't agree more. If this was New Zealand, she would have been laughed at, and no more mention.
It's almost impossible to sue in NZ.... forgot why, though.
 
Are you guys seriously calling her out? They left her on the plane. That's not standard procedure. I'd like to know who the captain of that flight was. All captains are supposed to make sure everyone safely disembarks, whether they have their stewards do it or whether they check personally. What if the lady had a stroke or seizure or something instead of just falling asleep?

The least they could do is comp her flight. It's not like she's suing for millions though. I'm not sure about the false imprisonment charge, but she'll get a few flights worth in court for the negligence and emotional distress.
 
Blitz187
It's far to easy to sue someone or a company in the good ole US of A.... I can understand she's frustrated, but sueing the airline is going a little bit far... If I were in that situation I would just keep nagging the airline company until they gave me some sort of compensation for not waking me up and getting me safely off the plane.
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Do you may mean US and A (borath?) lol
never funnay.........................................................................NOT

I agree with all of you.
On one side it is irresponsible of the stewards for not making a tour after landing and making sure everyone is out (security reasons?). Even on Bustours this is done!!

On the other side sueing for that is a bit much. Damages ?? What damages? When she woke up, did she thought judgement day had come? ****ted her pants???
Surly the aircompany owe at least an apology. Or give a her a free regional flight.
But running to your advocate and sueing.
For sleeping?
I in that case would haved open all emergeny exit which would have costed the company a few thousands bucks, and you on the save side you panic because of a fault of the company.LOL

The whole cost of a lawsuit should be higher so not every wanker goes out and sues the whole world because he feels damaged by society
i think here in Europe sueing is a longterm and very costy event (i'm in a lawsuit for 3 years now and it's sucks i want my car repaired!), why we don't sue that much, but we should a bit more often to rensure our rights, but i would also then fear getting the american concept, where you can get sued because a moron old woman puts warm coffee on her. (while driving, here that would be considered your own darn fault). But thats an other subject

(like Sony eating one class lawsuit after another which is nonsense due the the definition of "class lawsuit"!)

We here say :get a ****ing life!!

NB/PS: Plane arrived at midnight and the cleaning crew woke her up at 4o'c

Should i sue my old school?? They let me sleep during classes...
 
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Omnisaurus is right, the captain of the plane has a responsibility to make sure the plane is empty before leaving. The pilot who landed the plane on the Hudson river went back into the plane after landing to make sure that everyone was out ok.

If it was me, I wouldn't sue but I might have asked questions as to why nobody checked. There are definitely some safety implications there.

@ Sureboss- I have the same problem, no way I could fall asleep on a plane. Even if I did I think I would wake up with some severe motion sickness.
 
Omnis
Are you guys seriously calling her out? They left her on the plane. That's not standard procedure. I'd like to know who the captain of that flight was. All captains are supposed to make sure everyone safely disembarks, whether they have their stewards do it or whether they check personally. What if the lady had a stroke or seizure or something instead of just falling asleep?

The least they could do is comp her flight. It's not like she's suing for millions though. I'm not sure about the false imprisonment charge, but she'll get a few flights worth in court for the negligence and emotional distress.
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Im calling her out because I think its ridiculous to sue for something like this. The airline made a mistake, i'll give you that, BUT she should just have solved this privately and reached some sort of agreement with the airline... In my experience if you nag enough you'll get what you want from a company.... :D You just have to be resolute and stand for what you believe you have a right to have. This woman is just abusing the situation now and drawing attention to herself for something not-so-serious in my opinion... I think that has to do with the European mentality though. Here it is not easy to sue people or companies because there is no liability measures here like in the US.

For example in the US if a doctor makes a mistake and accidentally forgets some forceps in your stomach. You could sue that doctor for millions of dollars in damages.... If that were to happen here in Holland, the doctor would shrug his shoulders at you and say, "Im only human, I made a mistake." and then proceed to do whats necessary to rectify the situation... So the whole sueing thing is sort of looked down upon here. If you DO get to sue someone it is a very long, dragged out process and takes YEARS like *ibo* said earlier.
 
Blitz187
Im calling her out because I think its ridiculous to sue for something like this. The airline made a mistake, i'll give you that, BUT she should just have solved this privately and reached some sort of agreement with the airline... In my experience if you nag enough you'll get what you want from a company.... :D You just have to be resolute and stand for what you believe you have a right to have. This woman is just abusing the situation now and drawing attention to herself for something not-so-serious in my opinion... I think that has to do with the European mentality though. Here it is not easy to sue people or companies because there is no liability measures here like in the US.

For example in the US if a doctor makes a mistake and accidentally forgets some forceps in your stomach. You could sue that doctor for millions of dollars in damages.... If that were to happen here in Holland, the doctor would shrug his shoulders at you and say, "Im only human, I made a mistake." and then proceed to do whats necessary to rectify the situation... So the whole sueing thing is sort of looked down upon here. If you DO get to sue someone it is a very long, dragged out process and takes YEARS like *ibo* said earlier.
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Maybe the airline is refusing to give her what she thinks is fair? This is negligence we're talking about here. Why is it that she has to be ridiculed for the airline's mistake? She's doing what's appropriate: going to court after the airline failed to meet an agreement that was to her satisfaction.

This isn't analogous to malpractice and malpractice insurance. That has third parties involved, which is why there is a greater propensity for legal battle.
 
I found the false imprisonment part hilarious, but the rest is more than reasonable.
 
Omnis
Are you guys seriously calling her out? They left her on the plane. That's not standard procedure. I'd like to know who the captain of that flight was. All captains are supposed to make sure everyone safely disembarks, whether they have their stewards do it or whether they check personally. What if the lady had a stroke or seizure or something instead of just falling asleep?
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Except,
Daily Mail
United Airlines said it was investigating her claims. The Transportation Security Administration is also investigating.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said there was no regulation about leaving someone asleep on a plane.
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Now I'll take this with a pinch of salt, as it it's from the Daily Mail, and they may have simply asked "are you allowed to sleep on a plane".
 
It's not a regulation but it's pretty much common practice. My neighbor was a pilot for decades.
 
Tie this woman in front of everyone at the next town hall meeting, and start pointing fingers at her and laugh about it...... :dopey::lol::lol::lol::lol::cheers:

and everyday from the rest of her life, everyone around her shall laugh at her and make fun of her for oversleeping...

This is the stupidiest thing i heard...:ouch: :boggled: c'mon! They always check airplane before and after flights...



and even if they forget about her, it's not the airline responsibility to wake her up, it's just common sense to wake up then... the airline should actually be CHARGING her for the free ride!!!
 
CTznOfTime
Tie this woman in front of everyone at the next town hall meeting, and start pointing fingers at her and laugh about it...... :dopey::lol::lol::lol::lol::cheers:

and everyday from the rest of her life, everyone around her shall laugh at her and make fun of her for oversleeping...

This is the stupidiest thing i heard...:ouch: :boggled: c'mon! They always check airplane before and after flights...



and even if they forget about her, it's not the airline responsibility to wake her up, it's just common sense to wake up then... the airline should actually be CHARGING her for the free ride!!!
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An airport is a high security place. They should have checked no one was on board for security as well as safety reasons.
 
I'm mitigated on the subject:

1) How can the airline/commander guarantee the safety of this passenger if she is left alone on the aircraft. Seems a serious mistake to me.
2) Suing the aircraft for something that did not harm you and where you are half responsible too (you should get off the aircraft when told) seems a waste of justice resources and it is time these people get default (minor) fines for this. More appropriate to me seems to discuss with the airline and step to the press if the airline did not react correctly.

Edit: agree with security too, this person can move out or assemble things during the period the person is not surveyed.
 
Omnis
It's not a regulation but it's pretty much common practice. My neighbor was a pilot for decades.
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This.

Whether there's a law or not, leaving a sleeping passenger on the plane while the entire crew clears out is against common sense and most likely against the standard operating procedure of the airline.

It's similar to closing up the bar and leaving a drunk patron inside. Would you want your employees doing that? What happens if the disoriented and inebriated customer wakes up, decides to piss on the bar and raid the storage locker? Then cuts himself on a piece of broken glass when he breaks a window to escape?

It's incredibly bad business practice to leave customers unattended and completely alone on your property (or within, in this case, inside). And if any harm befalls the customer, who is still in your care, you can be held liable.

Which means, whether or not this goes to court, somebody's head is going to roll over this. If I had employees that stupid, I'd fire the whole lot of them.
 
She should have taken it for a spin around the block. :p
 
niky
This.

Whether there's a law or not, leaving a sleeping passenger on the plane while the entire crew clears out is against common sense and most likely against the standard operating procedure of the airline.

[..]

Which means, whether or not this goes to court, somebody's head is going to roll over this. If I had employees that stupid, I'd fire the whole lot of them.
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NO CREW would ever leave a passenger unattended and leave him/her behind...

Which is why i am thinking that woman must have been hiding somewhere, and has been planning this whole scenarios....

This needs further investigations, but it cannot make sense that any professional / worker could just ignore a sleepy passenger...

Just does not make sense, somebody ought to test her through the lie detector...


This is NOT about bad business practice, This is about someone trying to find a loop hole in the systems for financial gain...


So please stop blaming an entire organization for just one idiot! :odd:
This is so american... :rolleyes:
 
I fell asleep on a train one time between Sydney and Gosford (a 100km trip) and missed my stop, woke up 100km away from my destination (up near Newcastle).....does this mean I should be suing CityRail?? :dopey:
 
mafia_boy
I fell asleep on a train one time between Sydney and Gosford (a 100km trip) and missed my stop, woke up 100km away from my destination (up near Newcastle).....does this mean I should be suing CityRail?? :dopey:
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Did they leave you on the train after they took it off the tracks and into service for the night?
 
Do people seriously fly from DC to Philadelphia? With the whole airport "process", it would be faster to drive. Of course, then she would have fallen asleep at the wheel, and would be on the other end of someone else's lawsuit.
 
I think that she has every right to sue, its totally unacceptable practice by an airlines cabin crew to not ensure that everyone is off the plane not to mention a huge security risk. What if she had planted a bomb and somehow got of the plane before the next flight? What if she managed to steal it!?

I don't believe that you could even miss a person in such a small place as a planes cabin. It just shows they didnt even bother to check. I guess most would find it hard to believe that the landing of a plane wouldnt wake anyone up!

mafia_boy
I fell asleep on a train one time between Sydney and Gosford (a 100km trip) and missed my stop, woke up 100km away from my destination (up near Newcastle).....does this mean I should be suing CityRail??:dopey:
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Well firstly they arnt responsible for waking up people on a train because unlike a plane it had multiple destinations so how are they meant to know where you want to get off.

Secondly as Omnis stated, they didnt park it up, lock it and leave you on board overnight!

Robin.
 
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Everybody needs to take a step back for a minute. There is no mention of where she was sleeping at (as in what section of the plane), nor anything from the crew members. Perhaps they saw her and decided to leave her be (would like to hear that reasoning), perhaps they somehow overlooked her (see previous), or perhaps she was indeed hiding and claims that she was sleeping (which would explain her being missed). I'm going to save my opinions until we get more info.
 
buickgnx88
Everybody needs to take a step back for a minute. There is no mention of where she was sleeping at (as in what section of the plane), nor anything from the crew members. Perhaps they saw her and decided to leave her be (would like to hear that reasoning), perhaps they somehow overlooked her (see previous), or perhaps she was indeed hiding and claims that she was sleeping (which would explain her being missed). I'm going to save my opinions until we get more info.
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When you check any form of public transportation like a plane, bus or train you go by each row and check left and right and you would also check the bathrooms. If they did this they would have spotted her, meaning they probably didn't do it at all.

This means one of two things.
1) The crew failed to do this check properly.

-or-

2) She was hiding in the over head luggage compartment as that is the only place you can really hide in an airplane. Even then they are supposed to open all of them to check for luggage after each flight.

I get your point, and it's partially her fault, but a majority of the blame is on the airline.
 
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