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.