双语 | 放走了丁义珍，还暴力拖拽乘客，美联航有理了？

上周日，美联航因暴力拖拽亚裔乘客下机引发众怒，推特和脸书都炸了锅，中国的吃瓜群众也在各大社交媒体表达对美联航的不满——前几天刚刚在《人民的名义》中放跑丁义珍，现在又唱这出，简直太可气！😒

事情发生后，美联航曾发声明表示要求乘客下飞机是“超售”造成的——根据媒体报道，后来又改口了，但目前真相好像并不清晰。

那么，问题来了：“超售”是什么鬼？航班都是对号入座，为何会“超售”呢？“超售”如何引发冲突？万一遇到“超售”，又该如何更好地保护自身权益？这里就有份全面的科普，一起来get吧~

事件回顾

A man was violently removed from a United Airlines flight by aviation police officials at Chicago’s O’Hare international airport on Sunday, in an incident captured on video by several other passengers.

4月9日，在芝加哥奥黑尔国际机场，一名男子被机场警察暴力拖下美联航飞机，此事被几名乘客拍摄下来。

In one clip, posted by passenger Audra Bridges to Facebook, guards can be seen aggressively grabbing, and then dragging, the passenger down the aisle of the plane, which was bound for Louisville, Kentucky. Other passengers can be heard screaming and shouting “Oh my God” and “Look at what you did to him.”

该航班飞往肯塔基路易斯维尔。一位名为奥德拉·布理奇斯的乘客将视频贴在脸书上，视频显示几名保安粗暴地抓住那位乘客，并将其从飞机过道中拖拽出去，视频中还能听见其他乘客的惊叫声——“天啊”“看看你对他都做了什么”。

The airline said in a statement that the flight was overbooked, and that no passengers agreed to voluntarily give up their seats. United said airline representatives chose four passengers to leave the plane at random based on ticket class, frequent flier status and check-in time, and that one man selected refused to leave his seat.

美联航在一项声明中表示，该航班机票超售，没有乘客自愿放弃座位。美联航称，地勤人员根据机舱等级、会员等级和登机时间随机抽选4名乘客，其中一名男子拒绝离开座位。

Officials then requested the assistance of law enforcement, who forcibly removed the man. Bridges said the seats were being cleared for airline employees on standby who were needed by the airline for shifts in Louisville.

机组人员随后请求执法人员帮助，执法警察强制拖走了该男子。布理奇斯说，空出来的座位是给航班工作人员的，这些待命机组人员要到路易斯维尔换班。

The Chicago aviation department said later that one of the officers did not follow protocol and had been placed on leave pending a review. Federal transportation officials said they were reviewing whether United complied with overbook rules.

随后，芝加哥航空局称，一名警察未遵守规范，已被停职等待接受调查。联邦交通部官员表示，正对美联航是否遵守超售规定进行审查。

何为“超售”？美联航有理吗？

Airline passengers beware: when you buy a ticket, you are not only subjecting yourself to the ordeals of security queues, baggage limits and turbulence. You are also signing a near-40,000-word contract with a carrier that could have you hauled off an overbooked aircraft legally.

航空乘客需注意：购买机票意味着你不仅要面对安检排队、行李限制和颠簸的折磨，还要与承运方签订一份近40000字的合同，也许你会被合法地赶下超售航班。

There are two regulations that are standard practice across the industry. The first says a passenger can be barred from a flight if the number of customers with tickets exceeds the number of seats. The second says the captain can have you removed from the plane if you get emotional about it.

航空业有两项标准惯例性的规定，其一是如果持票乘客的数量超过座位数，可以禁止乘客登机；其二是如果你对这项规定持抵触情绪，机长可以将你逐出飞机。

Air travel is a thicket of regulations that, of course, have your safety at heart. But there can be a thin line between guaranteeing your security and dragging a seemingly innocent passenger off an overbooked aircraft.

航空旅行以你的安全为核心，做出了各种错综复杂的规定，但“保证你的安全”和“将一名看似无辜的乘客拽下超售飞机”之间的界限难以清楚划分。

Flight overbooking is a phenomenon born of an industry that has struggled historically to make money. Indeed, airlines lost nearly $50bn in the past decade due to a combination of the 9/11 attacks, high oil prices and the credit crunch. The sector is making money now, but profits are slender – $9.89 per passenger per journey – so taking a risk and selling 183 tickets for a 180-seater plane is worth it if three of those passengers fail to turn up and you can pocket their fare expenditure as pure profit.

这个行业一直以来都在为赚钱犯难，航班超售现象应运而生。确实，在9·11袭击事件、高油价和信贷紧缩等因素的综合影响下，航空业在过去十年里损失了近500亿美元（约合人民币3449亿元）。虽然现在开始盈利，但利润微薄，从每个乘客每趟旅行所获的利润仅为9.89美元（约合人民币68元）。因此，冒险为180座的飞机卖出183张票是值得的，如果有3名乘客无法登机，他们的票价支出就可以作为净利润收入囊中。

“Airlines have very large fixed costs, so if they don’t fill the plane past a certain point they will lose money. They know a certain proportion of these passengers will not show, so they need to overbook to get to break-even or better,” says Brian Pearce, the chief economist of the International Air Transport Association.

国际航空运输协会首席经济学家布莱恩·皮尔斯说：“航空业有着庞大的固定成本，所以如果超过特定的节点，飞机仍未满员，就会造成经济损失。他们知道有一定比例的乘客不会登机，因此需要通过超售实现收支平衡或更好的收益。”

The contract of carriage at United – the conditions to which you agree when you buy a ticket – comes in at 37,000 words and embraces a range of arcane treaties and rules, from the Montreal and Warsaw conventions to FARs, the US’s federal aviation regulations.

美联航的运输合同总计3.7万字，包含一系列晦涩难懂的条款和规定，既有《蒙特利尔公约》和《华沙公约》的内容，又涉及《美国联邦航空法》。

According to one legal expert, United was acting within its rights as the furore unfolded when it tried to find seats for four crew who needed to reach a plane they were due to operate in Louisville. But such a calamitous collision of passenger rights and airline prerogative is unlikely. “It is a very rare set of circumstances,” says Kevin Clarke, a flight-delay specialist at UK law firm Bott & Co. Pointing out that US airlines usually seek, and find, volunteers to come off full flights in exchange for compensation, he adds: “It can be a question of who backs down first.” In the case of this United flight, the passenger certainly didn’t.

一位法律专家表示，这次引起骚动的事件发生时，美联航正在权限范围内行事，为四名需要抵达路易斯维尔当班的工作人员寻找座位，但导致乘客利益与航空公司特权之间发生如此灾难性的冲突未必属于其权限。英国法律事务所Bott & Co的航班延误问题专家凯文·克拉克说：“这是极其罕见的情况。”他指出，美国航空公司通常会寻找，并且能找到主动放弃满员航班的乘客，并给予补偿，“问题是谁先让步。”在美联航这次事件中，乘客显然没有妥协。

United’s contract of carriage is a joyless tour of one of the world’s most over-regulated industries, where a minority of colourful terms – “acts of God”; “civil commotions” – is crowded out by tightly worded legalese that will stop you from taking any future journey for granted (at least on United). Under rule five, covering “cancellations of reservations”, the passenger is warned that all flights are “subject to overbooking”, which could result in the airline being unable to put the passenger on the flight. In that scenario – please bear with this – rule 25, on passengers denied boarding compensation, kicks in.

美联航的运输合同让人充分感受到这个世界上条款最冗余的行业之一是多么地索然无味，“不可抗力”“内乱”等少数形象生动的术语湮没在密密麻麻的法律术语中，你甚至看完后都会觉得将来再也不想旅行了。第五条涉及“取消预订”的条款中告知乘客，所有航班都“受制于超售”，这就意味着可能会导致航空公司无法安排乘客搭机。请注意，在这种情况下，涉及乘客拒绝登机、要求赔偿的第25条就生效了。

Using language that inadvertently acknowledges the confrontation inherent in the situation, it states that, if no passengers agree voluntarily to give up their seats in exchange for compensation, “other passengers may be denied boarding involuntarily”. Admittedly, there is recompense of about $1,000 available in this scenario, but it appears that the United passenger in this case said no. This brought him head to head with the far tougher rule, enshrined under the 1963 Tokyo Convention, that says the captain’s word is law on an airliner and that he or she has “the ultimate authority” in dealing with any onboard incident.

条款中使用的语言无形中说明了这起事件内在的对抗性。条款指出，如果没有乘客自愿让出座位，接受赔偿，则“其他乘客有可能会被禁止登机”。在美联航这起事件中，这名乘客可获得约1000美元（约合人民币6900元）的赔偿金，但他似乎拒绝了赔偿。这就使得他与美联航的棘手规定针锋相对，而这些条款是基于1963年的《东京公约》规定的，公约指出，在航空飞机上，机长的话就是法律，机长拥有处理任何机上事件的“最高权力”。

Rule 21 of United’s contract states that removal of a passenger may be necessary if their conduct is deemed to be “disorderly, offensive, abusive or violent”. It appears that the Louisville-bound passenger refused to give up his seat voluntarily and the crew deemed his behaviour to be out of line, prompting them to call in the security team at Chicago O’Hare international airport.

美联航运输合同第21条规定，如果乘客的行为涉嫌“骚乱、无礼、辱骂或暴力”，在必要情况下可驱逐乘客。看来，这位去往路易斯维尔的乘客拒绝主动让出座位，机组人员认为他的行为不符合规定，于是便叫来芝加哥奥黑尔国际机场的安保团队。

Airline professionals are astonished that United’s overbooking procedures, in a market where overbooking is prevalent, resulted in a passenger being allowed to board before they were subsequently dragged off. John Strickland, an industry consultant whose career has included managing the overbooking process at a major airline, says carriers now have sophisticated computer systems that calibrate whether flights can get away with being overbooked – right down to the specific route, the time of day and whether demand will surge due to holidays or special events. However, he adds: “It is not a perfect science, which means when it goes wrong it needs to be handled sensitively.” This is where United, a so-called full-service airline that tries to offer a level of customer service superior to that of budget rivals, could suffer lasting reputational damage.

在这个超售司空见惯的市场，专业航空人士对于美联航的超售程序导致乘客先被允许登机，后又被强行拉走的行为感到震惊。约翰·斯克里克兰是一名在一家大型航空公司负责超售程序的行业顾问，他说，航空公司现在都有复杂的计算机系统，能够测定航班是否能在超售的情况下正常运转，甚至包括具体的航线、时间，以及预订航班的需求量是否会因节假日或特殊日期而上涨。然而，他还说道：“这项技术并非很完善，这也就意味着当这个系统发生问题时，需要非常敏捷地做出处理。”美联航——一个所谓致力于为乘客提供高于同类竞争对手水平的全方位服务航空公司，之所以名誉不断受损，原因就在于此。

支招：万一遇见航班“超售”，如何应对？

乘客临时被赶，大多是因为航空公司“超售（oversold）”，也就是售出比实际座位多的机票，万一所有人都没有取消或晚到，就会有人要被迫临时改签。乘客未到率（No Show Rate）与“超售”现象息息相关。

为了降低被赶下飞机的几率，你可以：

1.登记成为会员；

2.选择非高峰航班（off-peak flight）；

3.买机票时看清楚所有内文条款，如果有“是否自愿改签”的选项，选“否”。

一般航空公司发生超售情况，会在办理登机时询问乘客是否自愿放弃登机（ask the passengers to volunteer to be denied boarding）。这时请选择“不自愿”，因为自愿改签最多赔400美元，非自愿改签最高可赔1300美元。

英文来源：英国《卫报》

英文插图来源：《赫芬顿邮报》

编译：阿狸、Janet、Lyla、YOYO

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