http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/united-airlines-ceo-apol...
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...
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.
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.
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...
And I don't see how you can wave away the incident just by claiming the actions were justified because of aviation law or how United runs.
(That in itself is some immaturity. I'm all for political action and power to the citizen and consumers and so forth, but I don't fight that fight while in some country's immigration and customs queue, or with the crew of an aircraft while in the aircraft.)
legal != right
Most people would not defy authority, but that doesn't mean that authority is in the right. Whether or not United technically acted in accordance with the law does also does not mean they are in the right. Where and when you personally would (or would not) choose to defy authority is also not a reliable barometer of whether that authority is worthy of defiance.
This was a logistical problem that resulted from United's own negligence. The personality traits that the passenger displayed after being lottery-selected for ejection are immaterial : the airline screwed up, the airline treated its customers like shit, the airline refused to provide suitable incentives, the airline refused to address the problem in a reasonable manner, and finally the airline went straight for the nuclear option. It was a colossal failure from start to finish, and the fault lies entirely with them.
There is the question as to when something counts as an aviation accident (because you do not want something to count as an aviation accident when the cockpit window cleaner falls of the ladder, but you do want to count something as an aviation accident when, say, something happens during taxi - even if you're not flying yet. But where do you draw the line?)
So, ICAO defines an accident to be "An occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight until such time as all such persons have disembarked" and fulfilling various further criteria.
So, according to that definition the airplane was "in operation".
If customers can no longer trust you to treat them with even the lowest degree of respect (and bodily integrity, already a sore point with air travelers is undeniably a part of that) then you're in trouble.
Witness the stock markets response today, no amount of legal wrangling will make that kind of beating right, besides the obvious ethical angles.
UA failed, then failed again during their initial apology and now may be able to put this behind them but it will be a very costly lesson.
The fact that the passenger had to be dragged out was due to the passenger, though.
