"wiggy"
Regarding Captains responsibility. In this case it was not about an unruly passenger. Captain would have had to give the go ahead to the dispatcher to call the police. A very poor decision indeed, and misuse of brute force.
The passenger could only have been given the order to remove the passenger by the Captain, Cabin Crew would have had to identify the passenger to the police, as the passenger was again as mentioned not an unruly passenger.
Of course OPS might have contacted the police, but in the end whatever happens inside the aircraft, either doors open or close, is the Captains responsibility.
The passenger did not sit in the wrong seat, not boarded by mistake, was not making any nuisance or being a threat that would identify him, unless the Cabin Crew Manager had identified him, and as far as I know, the Captain still outranks the Cabin Crew Manager.
If there are drunk passengers during boarding, the normal procedure in most companies I know of, is that the Captain is informed, and he ultimately takes the decision if the passenger should be removed and if the police is required.
I know of NO airline who does it differently, either in the USA or rest of the world.
This is the reason the Captain is payed a 6 figure amount, because he is the Top Manager on the aircraft.
This comment from another forum sums it up nicely:
"There's NOT a rule for removing paying passengers who have boarded the aircraft and are seated in their reserved, assigned seats and replacing them with airline employees.
Without comment on whether compensation for denied boarding is flawed or not, denied boarding is not the issue. The passenger was permitted to board, and was subsequently removed. While the airline may have been well within its rights to deny him boarding (we don't know if he met the criteria according to their boarding priority list, but let's assume he did), they allowed him to board. According to the Contract of Carriage Document, he should not have been removed involuntarily."
Last edited by truckflyer; 10th Apr 2017 at 21:48.