Future attitude issues?
This case is clearly so unique and bizarre that I really doubt it will have any impact on anything.
For a start we still don't know what happened. There are versions posted but nothing confirmed. (I do not accuse anyone of lying, I just prefer to get corroboration) I suspect we will never know. United clearly is not going to say anything publicly. Have they even acknowledged the event? There may be something in crew channels eventually and I am sure the insiders will figure out something from the rosters. This does not seem to qualify as an incident or an accident so there will be no FAA action.
If, and that is an if, the FAA did pull a license I am not sure that they have to provide a public explanation, or even a notice. Short of a lawsuit by the impacted party we will have no idea what the FAA has done with this.
End of the day, in the air the captain calls the shots. How the captain does their job is between him (her) and the company. No one else gets a vote. The punters, I'm one often enough, you can pay your money or go elsewhere. There is no way in hell I will get on a plane where the passengers get to vote on how it is flown, what CRM is in vogue etc.
Like any job if you take a course of action that costs the company money or unwanted publicity you better be able to explain why you did it. Many a career has ended on the rocks because the boss was not amused.
20driver