Originally Posted by
robdean
There are a few captains on this thread whose approach is 'the captain has absolute authority, all must obey instantly and if failure to obey gets you a blooded face, so be it'. There are excellent operational reasons for captains' authority, and the last thing they need is regulation or statute which complicates or curtails it.
Well that raises an interesting question. There have been a few cases well-reported in the press where pax have been removed for - bluntly - 'flying while Muslim'. "A passenger saw someone sitting near them reading something in Arabic and became concerned..." - and the upshot on a few occasions has been a captain requiring the Muslim passenger to disembark.
I think the authority of the captain when the doors are open at the gate is far from absolute. Indeed as an employee of the airline they are obliged to follow and enforce the airline's conditions of carriage. Those of United are here; I've linked directly to the section which lists permissible grounds for offloading.
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...age.aspx#sec21
I see nothing in the relevant section (21) which lists "passenger who someone else is concerned about on entirely specious ground" as being a permissible reason for offloading. So a captain who tried that could well receive a metaphorical slap in the face from a well-informed passenger armed with a copy of the conditions of carriage.
And also be in noted there is nothing there permitting the offloading of ticketed and confirmed passenger in order to accommodate someone - such as an employee - who is neither ticketed nor confirmed.