How many people have a) many thousands of dollars sitting around to pay for lawyers b) the requisite leisure to attend arbitrary court dates and locations c) the ability to deal with the loss of the above if the company wins the case based on some technicality? The company will happily take the proceeds from illegally squeezing the 99% who don't press charges to pay for the 1% who do.

Technically the blacks in the South had the right to vote after the Civil War. It took another hundred years of struggle to also secure the practical right. Theoretical rights don't matter much for those who can't exert them.

Only because the passenger peacefully resisted, and did not comply with the airline's request he depart the plane on his own volition. He didn't give into threats, and risked and received an assault, in order to arrive at the point where this is going to cost the airline.

He should totally bring a multi-million dollar lawsuit, it's a total cake walk as it'd be hard to find a jury that wouldn't sympathize and he and his grandkids would be millions of dollars richer. Not to mention all the dirt you can drag United through during the lawsuit in the media. Love to see some testimony from the dick CEO as well who tried even character assignation of the poor doctor they needlessly assaulted.

> He should totally bring a multi-million dollar lawsuit, it's a total cake walk as it'd be hard to find a jury that wouldn't sympathize and he and his grandkids would be millions of dollars richer. Not to mention all the dirt you can drag United through during the lawsuit in the media. Love to see some testimony from the dick CEO as well who tried even character assignation of the poor doctor they needlessly assaulted.

It'd be a cake walk alright ... for the airline.

Pilots have similar powers to the captain of a civilian naval vessel, and can legally refuse to carry passengers or order them off the aircraft: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-extra-ordinary-powers-tha...

Moreover, refusing to leave the premises when requested or to comply with the police when they arrived, is unquestionably against the law.

Even a jury has to operates within the constraints of the law or be overturned on appeal. Remember, the airline would be the defendant and has the right to appeal.

Sure, being bumped is lousy behavior by the airline but the doctor doesn't have a legal leg to stand on for his tantrum. If anything, the airline could probably sue him for delaying the flight and win.

> requested or to comply with the police when they arrived, is unquestionably against the law.

Except that's not who dragged him off. Representatives of a customer safety federal aviation department physically dragged him. I don't think everyone fully understands the sequence or "players" involved (I had to look it up too). - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-united-pa...

Otherwise, you're absolutely correct about voluntary vs compulsory.

A police officer would still be liable for not properly restraining and ensuring the safety of the "victim".

The article you linked says the individual was from the City of Chicago's Department of Aviation. While you do bring up an important clarifying point, I'd be surprised if the individual in question didn't have most or all of the same authority/powers as a police officer within his jurisdiction.

Some additional information from the Wikipedia article on airport police that seems to be relevant: "The City of Chicago Department of Aviation Police perform safety, security and law enforcement functions at O'Hare International Airport & Midway Airport. The department was formerly called the Department of Aviation Special Police. The Chicago Police Department Airport Unit also performs many of the law enforcement duties in and around Chicago area airports." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport_police) However, that information may or may not be current.

"Moreover, refusing to leave the premises when requested or to comply with the police when they arrived, is unquestionably against the law."

One might think that, but TFA points out that there are regulations covering when a passenger can be bumped. The demand that the passenger leave may have violated these rules. The police order in that case was mistaken, a point also raised in TFA.

> One might think that, but TFA points out that there are regulations covering when a passenger can be bumped. The demand that the passenger leave may have violated these rules. The police order in that case was mistaken, a point also raised in TFA.

Those regulations do not trump the pilot's authority to directly order a passenger removed for disrupting a flight, even for trivial reasons. See this article that discusses various airlines' history of expelling passengers (warning: autoplaying video with sound), http://fortune.com/2016/05/11/airlines-kicked-off-passengers..., or the FAA regulation directly, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2011-title14-vol2/pdf/CFR-...

Moreover, the police order may have been mistaken but that in no way absolves the individual from complying with said order. He should have resolved the issue with litigation afterwards.

(Again, to make my position clear, the airline behaved quite badly but so did the passenger.)

FAR 91.3 and 91.11 exist for operational safety of the flight. The purpose of the FAR is the PIC can ignore company, customer, and even Air Traffic Control orders that compromise the safety of the flight. Company says you must land at this airport tonight, and the pilot says well it's socked in, it's not safe to land, so no. That's the purpose. It's to make him accountable to flight safety, not the company or anybody else.

By making him an agent of his company's customer service to remove a passenger who is in compliance with the law, regulations, and the company's own contract of carriage, and then use FAR 91.3(a) as an excuse to say the pilot must be obeyed is poor logic. And I am a pilot (and a former CFII). I think it makes flights less safe to inject the company's demands into the cockpit. They do not matter, what matters is safety. That's what his FAR is about, not to enable the pilot to be an ass to passengers on behalf of his moronic company.

And claiming otherwise damages the necessary trust that we're supposed to have, and should have, with pilots and crew. Their primary purpose is to save your life. It is not to pour sodas, or appease the company CEOs profit needs by being jerks to passengers, and throwing them off for business reasons.

As for the police, I think that was an illegal assault on the part of the officer, and given the available information the passenger wasn't breaking any laws, so the police being there was inappropriate in the first place, they shouldn't have intervened and should know that.

Edited a few times to remove foul language :-D

I appreciate you making this comment.

Too many places I frequent have had crews, and especially airline pilots, basically pulling the "my word is law, there is no appeal and no review and nobody above me but God and even He only has an advisory role" crap.

God complex in pilots. It's archaic, but still comes up from time to time. Before crew resource management it was absolute authority, and one of the most famous consequences of this thinking is the Tenerife accident in 1977. The PIC was basically all, no goddamnit we're cleared for takeoff and we're going now - 5 minutes later nearly 600 people are melting and burning.

More recently, examples of pilots refusing to fly with Muslims on board. It's more of this "what I say goes" logic, and the gate agents were not able to tell the pilot to take the corn cob out, and take these passengers to their destination.

> order a passenger removed for disrupting a flight

Passenger was not disrupting the flight in any way. Passenger was behaving properly and then was forced to leave for the convenience of the airlines at great inconvenience to himself, despite the fact that he was as entitled to remain on the flight as any other passenger -- as in this was unfair to him and him alone. It was also made clear to him that he was not responsible for being forced to leave as well as the fact that all the other passengers felt the exact same way as the passenger who was being forced to leave.

I think linked article and regulation adequately address that. If the pilot asks an individual to debark, s/he is not, in fact, entitled to remain on the flight, other regulations notwithstanding.

Regardless of your opinions, United is now getting sued by the doctor. So it doesn't seem like reality actually agrees with your sentiments.

Doesn't mean a thing. One can initiate a lawsuit for the most frivolous of causes but it doesn't mean that they will win.

Even a pilot has to operate within the constraints of the law or be sanctioned. They have operational authority to do pretty much anything while a plane is in flight, but that doesn't shield their airline from the legal consequences of forcefully pulling a man from a seat in order to shuttle airline employees to their next destination.

You are wrong. Pilot in command[1] only qualifies when the plane is in flight, which is even mentioned in the quora question you linked. In flight definition requires plane to be moving under its own power. Additionally, the pilot did not tell the passenger anything. An on the ground manager did.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Please throw away your throwaway account.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_in_command

You've been posting uncivilly to HN. We ban accounts that do that, so would you please (re-)read the site rules and comment civilly and substantively from now on?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

> read the site rules and comment civilly and substantively

Civilly I can give you, but substantively?

> The test for substance is a lot like it is for links. Does your comment teach us anything?

I don't understand how you can claim I'm not commenting "substantively" when I'm correcting blatantly wrong info with citations.

If you edit the uncivil parts out of your comments and leave only the substantive parts, that would be just fine.

And like all corporate dick moves, it will probably be topped off with United not admitting that they did anything wrong.

I thought it was pretty awful when some news sites started publishing information on the passenger that was dragged off.

It was worse than that; they even published information on the wrong doctor (with the same name). One was from Louisiana, the other Louisville. Shameful.