Originally Posted by
tonyhap
Is it really UA's fault? Is it not the fault of the police persons who got excessively rough and physical? Why did their training not kick in and give them second thoughts on using strong arm tactics? Why did those police persons not suggest to the CC that they were not prepared to use physical force of that degree? And suggest to the CC that a more civilised solution should be found?
It was UA's fault for failing to raise the financial incentive for "volunteering to deboard" enough to manage the situation peaceably, and indeed
voluntarily by the pax.
They allowed it to progress past that point, to forcible removal of a passenger selected at random who didn't want to volunteer, presumably because the compensation wasn't high enough to offset his personal/professional needs for taking that flight. This led to what anyone outside the airline industry will see as unprovoked physical assault on a paying passenger. The fact that nobody else was taking the $800 offer didn't give the airlines permission to start forcibly removing people by means of proxy (the airport police).
Whatever you think of that logic, or the various regs involved, it's how the entire world outside the airline industry is seeing this right now.
I do think it would be helpful to see exactly how the conflict escalated, but at this point it's irrelevant. One or more people at UA made some very bad decisions here.