Originally Posted by
Koan
How many days are you happy to be delayed in Chicago because one passenger refuses to comply with a valid instruction to deplane, thus allowing you crew to get to the hotel in SDF to get their required rest so you can get out on time?
You are trying to push the responsibility for the problem of an airline over to its customers. That's not how it works. If your operation has, for whatever reason, taken a tumble, you don't attempt to save the itinerary of one customer by screwing over the next one.
UA had a phalanx of options available to them for getting that crew in place, in time; they chose what they thought was the cheapest and the path of least resistance.
And lets dispense with the 'valid instruction' BS; the instruction was neither valid nor legal. It was an ill-advised attempt at saving a few bucks by screwing over paying customers, nothing more or less.