Being in the right (if that is the case) does not mean you can behave however you want. If a hotel denies your booking for whatever reason, would you just stay in the lobby anyway?
To make it worse, he paid to be there. If they didn’t want him in the seat, they shouldn’t have sold him a ticket.
He already paid, already received the ticket, and already had his ass in the seat.
Why would you call this medieval?
And no, btw, pretending to be confused isn't convincing.
He paid for the flight, was checked in, allowed into the plane and didn't provide any reason himself for being thrown out. The people who escalated the situation were the airline staff and airport staff. Huge difference.
The property owner of the property he is occupying against the owner’s wishes.
> What is this, medieval Europe?
Capitalism isn't the same thing as feudalism, though both give preeminence to property rights (in capitalism, the important ones are more likely to be marketable rather than fixed to predefined systems of inheritance.)
The United incident was a total disaster for United, they were incompetent and doubled down on that incompetence because of policies driven by their bottom line. The “police” that removed the trespasser were no trained and were also incompetent.
None of that changes the fact that if the captain of the airline thinks it’s a safety problem he can remove the passenger.
The equivalent analogy would be: you paid for and were situated in your hotel room, when you receive notice from the hotel that they have overbooked their hotel and that hotel staff from another hotel need to stay in your room and you must evacuate your room immediately. When you refuse to do so, they have security slam your head into the bedframe, resulting in you breaking your teeth, and then leave you outside on the curb.
The correct thing for the airline to do is call the police if necessary and resolve the dispute using the law.
Throwing someone out in the street with a proper reason is not entirely legal in most jurisdictions, at least not in mine. Proper reasons include disruption, property damage, violating the rules, committing crimes, being intoxicated, not having paid, being past the leave date, etc.
In this case, the reason is "hotel staff from another hotel need to stay in your room", which is not grounds for expelling anyone.
Even when hotels make mistakes and overbook they can't throw out guests that are already accepted and accommodated. Hotels even go the extra mile of directing the additional guests to other hotels and foot the bill.
It's not unreasonable to expect them to plan ahead better. Perhaps they need to have more jumpseats, or force them to displace the highest paying customer first to discourage that kind of planning.
There are many more humane options available when we realize we should be in control of the rules governing their operations, if only this whole shitstorm wasnt massively corrupt.
They are the ones that should have let him fly and dealt with the issue separately without creating a new incident if they felt he was in the wrong.
You may not like it (and I don't either), but overselling flights is not fraud; it's a normal, accepted, legal practice.
If he had followed the rules and done what he was -- legally -- told to do, he wouldn't have to have become a "victim". That doesn't justify what security did to him, but he's the one who started the escalation.
No.
Telling a paying passenger who is not behaving belligerently in any way that they must vacate their seat so that an airline staff member can fly in that seat is what starts the escalation.
https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...
That is pretty clear, so you can stop making up stuff for the sake of an invalid argument.