Originally Posted by
twb3
Bottom line is that it's United's aircraft. It would have been far better to deny boarding in the first place than to deboard a passenger, but the incident was escalated by the passenger refusing to leave the aircraft once told that he would not be accommodated on that flight.
I think it will set a terrible precedent if this passenger is rewarded for his behavior. The lesson learned will be that defiance of flight and ground crew and abusive behavior will get you want you want.
Court proceedings will determine if the passenger 'defied' a legal and ethical request or not, and if he is in the right, I hope he IS rewarded for his 'defiance', the carrier really stuffed up the management of this situation by not handling this at the gate, and after a polite approach to pax to voluntarily deboard, the next reasonable step should have been to find alternative means to transport the stby crew.