However you want to spin this, something obviously went very wrong here. An important skill, which is rarely demonstrated by very large companies is fixing problems like this. If I was the responsible person at United I would think, what would Richard Branson or someone like him do in a situation like this? A very public offer of first class round the world tickets might go some way to salvage the public relations disaster. You can argue that legally United are OK, but perception is the basis of true reality. In this case even if the man was unreasonable and it is not absolutely clear that he was, this needs a bit more than an apology and a promise to look in to it.