2. It is, indeed, hard to judge without having established the facts. But resisting a captain's (or, by extension, flight crew's) order, or the orders of the owner of the airplane, is in itself illegal and, frankly, immature. Running onto the plane again after having been "dragged off" and muttering "Just kill me" seems to point to possible mental issues, but again, it's hard to tell without further information.
More measured pieces, such as this one [1], state "It appears from the evidence that the law was broken – by him, not by the airline."
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/united-a...
You realize this could be because of the concussion he might have suffered earlier, don't you? Rather cruel thing to throw out there as an accusation after reviewing the video of the incident.
What's your legal recourse? None.
Sometimes it's not the same sensible, legal and right.
They have some criteria to exclude people from the bad lottery (disabled people and their care takers, unaccompanied minors), and then may apply a ranking based on booking class, frequent flyer status, and check-in time.
But here, the claim is that pax were chosen randomly.
Many people have good reasons to be on a plane, and this passenger being a doctor should not have any bearing on the resolution of the problem at hand (except insofar as it should've compelled other pax to take the 800 USD and hotel room and volunteer for disembarkation).
And we're entitled to roast them for doing so when we think they've done wrong.
Even if most of us think our needs (/convenience) is more important than everyone else, most of us also appreciate the role that doctors & nurses play.
Plus, airlines have rules about literally everything-including wearing leggings. From both a business and a public safety perspective, it would hardly be shocking if an airline mandated that doctors and nurses should be either exempt from removal or the last to be removed. Not sure if you've ever been on a plane where someone has had a serious medical issue when there hasn't been a doctor or nurse on board, but its hardly uncommon. Having a doctor on board decreases risk for an airline--keeping doctors & nurses aboard certainly makes more senses than random choice does or choosing whomever paid the least.
So rather than us armchair quarterbacking it, why not let more of the facts solidify before passing judgement?
PS. I'm not sure if I would say that the article you linked to counts as "measured". Here's a different article (comes with citation of United's Contract of Carriage): https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/11/did-united-airlines-vio...
In my view, the Independent article gives the "received wisdom", while the article you linked is from a (self-professed) non-expert reading the conditions of carriage and doing some hairsplitting there.
Edit: Independent, not Telegraph
From what I can tell, The Independent article was not sourced from an expert either so your attempt to show that the Independent article has more "weight" does not back things up.
Here's an article quoting an aviation attorney: http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/stu_bykofsky/United-...
"Under certain conditions, airlines can bar passengers from boarding - if the passenger is unruly or intoxicated or on a terrorist watch list - but United had no right to remove Dao, says aviation law expert Arthur Wolk, a Center City attorney who read the 45-page “contract of carriage.”
Wolk says Dao “absolutely” had the right to the seat, and this was not a case of “overbooking,” he says, because all the passengers had seats. What happened to Dao was “assault and battery,” he says.
“There’s absolutely no humanity left in the airline business,” Wolk says, adding that United routinely finishes low in surveys of passenger satisfaction. “I would sue their asses off.”
Is there any question that Dao is going to sue? John Banzhaf, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, agrees with Wolk’s analysis. He says United is “citing the wrong federal rule to justify its illegal request to force a passenger already boarded and seated to disembark.”"
Let me cite another source though, Bloomberg, which, again, echoes the received wisdom as far as I can tell:
1. Can airlines just throw seated passengers off planes?
Yes. When you purchase an airline ticket you’re also entering into a detailed contract that specifies the many rights an airline has related to the trip. One of them allows the carrier to seize your seat in return for compensation and an alternate means of transport, usually on a later flight. Airlines also can determine that when their employees must be somewhere for duty -- a status that, yes, may place them ahead of paying customers -- a passenger’s seat can be taken. That’s because not positioning a crew member can lead to a future flight cancellation or delay.
> Thatcher Stone, a lawyer who has successfully sued airlines over bumping incidents, advises that passengers should always follow instructions of airline crew, no matter how strongly they may feel.
Agreed that injury was not deserved, but what do you suggest should be done if people don't follow a lawful order to vacate the premises?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-11/can-airli...
While I won't dispute that the moment he refused to deplane, he violated the law (you're required to follow the instructions of flight crew), the request that he be removed was also a violation of UA policy from what I've seen.
Here's some things that I've read
- He had previously volunteered to deboard, until he learned that it would be such a long delay
- This was not a case of overbooking, the 4 people added to the flight were United Employees, not overbooked passengers.
- UA policy states that airline employees will be the first people bumped from a flight in the case that it is overbooked
- (According to someone on reddit, so extra salt:) All of the overbooking regulations have to do with seat assignments. You shouldn't get bumped once you're assigned a seat, much less seated, and doing so may be a breach of regulations by United.
If that's the case, then the crew were absolutely breaching UA policy when he was removed, and they may have been breaching federal regulations when they asked him to deplane. To be clear, that's no excuse for refusing to deplane (even if he knew he was in the right), but it's not as simple as "he was disruptive" if the request for him to leave was illegal.
As for the 4 employees - there is staff travel for personal reasons (ID travel, interline discount, heavily discounted, stand-by), where you have lower priority than paying pax. There is booked staff travel, where you have intermediate priority. But then there is travel for operational reasons (positioning), where you have higher priority, because if you don't get there, a whole planeload of pax (and more, due to knock-on effects) won't fly. So, the number of available seats was reduced, and insofar it was overbooking.
And certainly all this should have been sorted out before boarding, no doubt, and normally is. (Apparently only 6 in 100,000 pax or so are IDB, by the way.)
But imagine a seatbelt turns out to be broken, or the wind is so strong that they have to load more fuel and reduce weight, or whatever. Then there's a seat less, for operational reasons, and someone has to leave, even if they had boarded already.
If a plane has X seats, but the carrier has assigned X+4 bums for those seats, then it's a case of overbooking.