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> That's ultimately who outrage should be directed at, the police. Why did they come in the first place? Had a crime been committed? Passenger safety endangered? Police were summoned by a "private" company. They were informed that corporate policy required them to drag a passenger of the plane. They said OK, I guess that's our job.

If you frame it that way, then it does sound outrageous. This:

> They were informed that corporate policy required them to drag a passenger of the plane. They said OK, I guess that's our job.

makes it sound like the police think it is their job to enforce corporate policy.

But is that accurate? The airline owns the plane. They have the legal right to decided who is and who is not allowed on the plane. They allowed that particular passenger onto the plane, and then later they revoked that permission. When he refuses to leave at that point, doesn't he become a trespasser?

From the police point of view how is this any different from any other situation where someone is on private property without permission and refuses to leave? In most countries, I believe, removing trespassers is one of the normal functions of the police. Generally, in civilized countries, we want the police to do that rather than having the owner try to force the trespasser out themselves.

I think you make a fair point, and I concede that my accusation is not airtight abstracted from this incident and industry. I don't know what the absolute dividing line to corporatism is. This is murky water.

I would say that calling Dr Dao a trespasser is stretching either the term or the truth. The actions of police vis-a-vis passengers are not dictated by just general laws (like trespassing) that govern everything. They a dictated by industry specific regulations & policies about what is & isn't OK for the passenger and/or airline to do. These regulations are implicitly and explicitly written around the business models of the airlines, in collaboration with them.

We could probably litigate the details of this incident incident at length along the lines you suggest, but I don't think you can ever find the smoking gun of corporatism in individual details. Corporatism is about the systemic.

Corporatism exists where corporate and state power are merged.

In this case, a tell tale sign is how confused commenters on this thread (and journalists) get about about what is airline policy and what is industry regulation.

For example, it turns out (I think) that the regulator sets maximum compensation for involuntary deboarding while airlines set their own max for voluntary deboarding. I imagine that most passengers, crew & airport police have as much trouble demarcating these as journalists do.

When the regulator sits down to try and prevent future incidents like this (maybe right now), they'll ask to see United's policies on involuntary deboarding. They might get United to revise the lottery policy. They might issue new guidelines. They might standardise deboarding policies banning lotteries. Or United might, it's hard to tell.

>...The airline owns the plane. They have the legal right to decided who is and who is not allowed on the plane. They allowed that particular passenger onto the plane, and then later they revoked that permission. When he refuses to leave at that point, doesn't he become a trespasser?

I think an argument can be made against treating this as trespass. There is a (rather long) contract between the passenger and the airline. There are many reasons they list on the contract why they can deny transport, but wanting that seat for their own use is not one of the reasons. If a landlord rents you an apartment, there are reasons they can have the police evict you, but wanting to kick you out because the landlord wants to use the apartment for the use of his family is not one of them.

I will change a few words in your question to make some senses. >>...A convenience store owns the place. They have the legal right to decided who is and who is not allowed to buy (candy, alcohol, cigarettes...). They sold to that particular client, the client paid it, and then later the store revoked the sell. When the client refuses to return the item at that point, doesn't he become a theft? <<.

I am sorry to say the client is not trespassing since he already paid, he got this seat number and is already seated in the plane. The trespassers were the 4 employers that the crew has decided to kick the 4 others clients. That is called favoritism.

I feel it's important to detangle overbooking and involuntary debaording, here.

With overbooking itself, up until the point that someone is bumped against their will, the practice is purely a win-win for all; airlines save costs -- a boon for competition and prices -- and passengers volunteering for a later flight get compensation that they view as valuable enough for the inconvenience.

For involuntary deboarding, there are scenarios -- albeit presumably unlikely -- that can occur, regardless of overbooking, that necessitate its use. For example, as mentioned in the article, sudden weather changes forcing a reduction in weight, or simply a broken seat. Point being, there are possibly entirely legitimate issues of safety, generally outside the immediate control of the airline, that easily trump any one person's right to their seat, even after boarding.

While much blame should be placed on the police here in terms of how they handled the situation, I don't see why this isn't something to be handled, ultimately, by the DoT in further dictating passenger rights. For this specific case, if involuntary deboarding was only allowed, say, for cases affecting passenger safety, the airline would be left with the choice of either, one, living with the repercussions of not being able to transport their crew immediately, or two, upping the voluntary compensation until there was a taker (and there would be at some point).

That is to say, I don't see why this issue couldn't be handled more elegantly by creating a market where the airline gets forced to up the compensation until it is approximately equal to the expected costs of not being able to deboard someone. And if that creates too many scenarios where they simply don't get a taker for the deboarding, then clearly their actuaries need to be fired.

We disagree then, I guess.

One of the big dangers of industry regulating is eroding the border between the public and corporate domains. The line between state regulation and public policy is blurred.

Did United Airlines beat up Dr Dao or was it The State? Who should be prosecutted? Who needs to review their practices to make sure no one else gets ausulted.

In the current system, we need to do as ou suggest. Treat the complex of regulators, corporations & law enforcers as a sigle unit. Tweak the regulations (in collaboration with a half dozen corporations and police agencies) and the practices of all involved.

This is corporatism and it's dangerous.

There's plenty of naked corporatism at play in this incident, and police forces acting as de-facto corporate goons is a big problem in America. But I think in this case the individual cops who said "OK, I guess that's our job" were probably not at all supported by the law or even their own departmental policy - I think this is part of the reason the incident made such waves, because the police actions were so beyond the pale in enforcing a trespassing claim.

There's also the x-factor of societal attitudes towards air travel post 9/11 (with additional post Trump anxieties added in). For all we know, the police might not have been told that Dao had been randomly selected for removal - they might have just been told that he was a disruptive passenger that needed to be removed. In either case, just by being on an airplane, the police will be primed to think of all the bad things bad people can and have done on airplanes. Laws and public attitudes have changed and it's gotten a lot easier to prevent people from flying since 9/11, so the police probably didn't think much of it from a consumer/civil rights standpoint (not that they necessarily do in any context), and just went into autopilot mode of applying force to resolve the problem in front of them. None of which is to excuse them, just to explicate that I don't think the incident was strictly caused by naked corporatism.

theres also the fact that the person in question clearly posed no threat to anyone whatsoever. So even if he was a terrorist, theres no reason to potentially break his back, which is clearly a potential outcome when you yank someone out of a seat, past an armrest, as depicted in the video.

police in a lot of other countries achieve a lot more by just convincing uncooperative individuals with words than they do with blunt, pointless force, in murica.

there seems to be the strongly held opinion that "if they do something wrong, we have the right to treat them like shit and whatever that gets them is well deserved".

the idea that this was actually police, and not some random "security grunt" went completely over my head because this is not how police acts where I live.

for the overarching problem, theres a really simple solution: make it legislation that an airline may not book more seats than they have available. if you overbooked trains or busses or cruise ships or any other mode of transportation where you require a seat, people would call bullshit. airlines, however, somehow obtained the right to sell "the idea of a seat".

With regards to your proposed solution... I've often wondered how it is not considered fraudulent to overbook a flight already.

Isn't the act of overbooking akin to writing a check for an amount of money that you do not have in your account balance? If this can be considered fraud, why do the airlines get a break?

because a ticket is not really a ticket. it is more like an agreement that if you show up at the airport and the airlins is down to transporting you, they could go through with that plan.

when you book a ticket, it says in the fineprint that you acquiring that ticket doesnt mean that you get to fly.

it is more like a bank pretending to have your exact balance available at all times. in fact, they do not. they kinda bet on the fact that not all customers want to cash out at the same time, which works almost all the time except when the banking sector melts down and all customers try to cash out at once and then banks have to admit that they cant really pay you out even if they wanted to.

A small correction: these weren't city police. They were Chicago Department of Aviation Security personnel, who are allowed to wear jackets that say "police" on them but are essentially airport mall cops. Their leadership answers to people who depend on the airlines, which makes it hard for them to change their policies if the airlines don't want them to. So if the impression you are getting is "naked corporatism", you're absolutely right.

I'm completely with you that they should not be involved in deplaning people who don't pose a safety risk.

Fortunately, the airlines hate PR / liability incidents like this. Delta is trying to take advantage of United's bad involuntary-bump policy by looking very good in comparison.