Well, there ya go: excuse the behavior because the legal remedy might place hardship on the perp.
"One has to feel some sympathy for the accused..."
Getting a court judgement for damages is a far cry from actually collecting them. I'd be surprised if the airline had the guts to chase this guy for the money. Bad
PR and all that.
Every decision an airline makes is about money: what is the cost of pursuing the guy through the legal process to get the $21K vs just dropping the whole thing and expressing sympathy for the perp ?
"Stevenson noted WestJet
could make a civil claim against Young if it wanted to try to recover more of its losses. "
I had the unfortunate opportunity to be a part of two lawsuits involving pax incidents. If it costs more to fight than just drop the whole thing, they drop the whole thing.
Pretty funny and predictable. Any moral outrage by the airline worker bees is merely naive.