Not such a risk for the airline if they stop creating situations which could cause the need to compensate passengers! This will be a good motivator for the staff to get the seating right the first time!

PM, Your last sentence has me astounded, you are a PIC and you are asking on here what are the legal ramifications.:ugh:

Why so? Operating crew are not lawyers and the query is about pax not even on board!!.

That is an interesting question, because there are lots of incidents of passengers getting removed from a plane for no particular reason. Maybe they were working on an abstruse math paper or they were taking pictures of the IFE screen or they were speaking some foreign language.
Thus far, there has been no protest against such actions, arguably high handed and illegal under normal commercial contracts.
That will surely come under scrutiny and may not be permitted to continue. Certainly one might argue that if someone has gone through security, they should be acceptable to the airline.

The legal discussion given in the article is not very convincing.
The author may have contributed it in part as a personal advertisement. If so, he was ill advised imho.

Airbubba,the author of that blog that you posted states that the flight was overbooked.

According to what I've read ,that isn't the case. There's a lot of conflicting 'legal opinions' floating around at the moment,so it'll be very interesting to see how this plays out in a real courtroom with appropriately qualified legal practitioners. I get the feeling that the Doctor doesn't want an out of court settlement.

400kgs of luggage doesn't equal four seats for crew.

That's a good summing up.

It's reasonable and predictable that there is disagreement among the legal community about the relative weights of Conditions of Carriage, on one hand, and the absolute right (if it exists) of a company to kick an individual off its property (made more complicated by the fact that the crew of an aircraft have wide-ranging powers).

That disagreement is only going to be resolved in a courtroom, and it's probably in United's interest - though not necessarily that of the travelling public - that it never get that far.

I expect the following outcomes:

a) Dr Dao will reluctantly forego his day in court, on the advice of his lawyers, but will become a very rich man
b) the legal situation will remain as muddy as before
c) the industry will pay lip service to the lessons learned, but until those at the top wake up to the fact that they are running a customer-focused business, nothing will really change

Going on his actions on the aircraft, I don't think he's going to let this go. He knows his rights, and he has the law (not to mention the public and the media) on his side.

UA have already lost a billion dollars in value, which before the days of social media and video phones, would have all been swept under the carpet, with a barrage of PR reps, and the Dr would have been discredited as a rowdy and disruptive passenger who disobeyed legal directives from the police, despite their gentle and meek demeanour escorting him from his seat.

Bad luck for UA that isn't going to wash with all the actual evidence that is available today. UA are going down for this.

twb3 - I think you must have strayed onto the wrong thread, what happened in Chicago was totally wrong, should never have happened and entirely down to gross mishandling by the local traffic staff, there is no evidence of abusive behaviour by the passenger in question, either.

You know the CVR (if still available - which it likely isn't) could help a PIC.

Purely hypothetical, but if a PIC ever authorised (or went along with) deplaning a pax, but only after a intercom conversation that said pax was aggressive and threatening and a danger..... a PIC could be very grateful for this CVR evidence. May not get you totally off the hook, but would at least demonstrate you had been given inaccurate information.

LEO carry recorders and most of the time it helps them. Of course if it records improper conduct then LEO is screwed. But most of the time this evidence protects.

Dave, What you say seems on the money, but we cannot forget that this whole incident is about money and this will affect your item (c)

To recover their lost customers, UA will need to establish and publish a more client friendly bumping procedure. Otherwise they could be known for years as the "drag on, drag off" airline!

In court the ramping up of crew authority would possibly establish an increased level during pushback, more during taxiing and full authority at some point during the take-off roll. Original legislation might not have considered what a court might. Prior to crew boarding, as an example of the complexity, captain authority includes refusal to operate if aircraft is unserviceable, his fuel decision not met etc. In practice he simply makes his requirements known and his ultimate authority to refuse the flight forces company to treat his requests with a similar authority as would his crew and pax during flight.

Have to agree, as soon as the second paragraph he seems to go off the rails.

Dave,

You may well be correct but, do you not think that the awareness of pax rights has been highlighted by this so much that maybe the industry will now want this resolved?

Of course costs will be borne by the consumer but I would suggest this is a small price to pay for (hopefully) an improvement in the typical abysmal service that most US and EU so called full service carriers have lowered themselves to.

There is also the matter of criminal proceedings. A potential crime was commited on Republics (?) Property so all involved are standing ready to assist the authorities one hopes. If charges are raised, this would be more defining for the industry in terms of clarification of authority than civil negotiations.

It is probably in the public _and_ airlines interest (in the long term) that this discussion goes to court.
Hopefully there will also be discussed some of the imposed commercial practices that favour this situation, and which can create an unsafe environment.

I do appreciate that, for instance, had the Captain intervened to prevent this outcome (one way or the other) he/she may then be given some hard time afterwards (e.g. had he refused to transport his colleagues).
Also clearly the gate agent had a problem to try to solve (either due to his mistake or someone else's) in a short time; even in a confrontation I cannot think they want to get to a point when someone is getting hurt! I hope (s)he also gets all the support (s)he may need.

I would suggest the local buck stops at the station manager; nothing to do with the captain. The orders to the S.M. would have come from 'mission control'. The SM was "only obeying orders, m'lud". My question would be who authorised/coordinated the use of 'unnecessary force'. Was that a decision made on the spot by the bouncers? If UAL had said "create seats at all costs," then that is the fault. If the bouncers went beyond their remit, and should have backed off, then that is their fault. Someone has to discover who made the decisions to man-handle the pax in such an extreme manner.

United will not want this case to go to court. It is already an A1 PR disaster and with the evidence available a good attorney will make mincemeat of any defence. The defendants are themselves divided; perfect cannon fodder for the plantiffs. Dr Dao happens to have hired a very good litigation firm. Expect a very generous offer unless United are really stupid.

Matt48 - I asked the question because the passengers were NOT on board. Onboard I'm pretty clear about what I can and can not do, I was asking about the transit area between gate and aircraft door.

And Rat 5, I think you are spot on.

The traditional way of dealing with the problem on charter flights home from the Med on hot days.