Doesn't matter if he was belligerent or not , he entered into a contract with united for travel from A to B once he purchased his ticket . Then once seated he had a legal right to that seat . To beat him up and drag him off the aircraft was disgusting and not acceptable . Had united simply kept upping the offer they would soon have found 2 other people willing to give up their seats .
The CEO initially made a half hearted apology to the Dr which he had to reverse a couple of days later , the share price lost $250 million overnight and united has suffered the worst kind of
PR nightmare to say nothing of the tens of millions that they will have to pay to this passenger . Personally I don't think that it will get to court because if it goes in front of a jury he will be awarded a lot more money than a confidential settlement .
Had the CEO of united come out immediately and made a heartfelt apology and got ahead of this incident he could have circumvented a lot of the issues he has now . I wouldn't be surprised to see him step down over his handling of this
Co incidentally a family made $11,000 over the weekend by continually accepting compensation for a flight to Florida . I think they got 3 nights in hotels and cash incentives . So had united offered even $5000 someone would have taken it and they would be a lot better off in the long run