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In the General/Chat forum, on a thread titled United Airlines and our culture of perpetual outrage, pabianice wrote:
A flicker of uncharacteristic sanity at UMass.

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Actually not so much. The flight was not overbooked and the doctor paid over $1000.00 for his ticket. They wanted to remove him from his seat so that airline employees could use the seat, it was said that some of those employees needed to be on another flight in the morning and it was imperative that they reach their destination in time to get rest before flying again.

Ok, it is the right of United Airlines to decide who to kick off of a flight but certainly unwise to kick anyone off who has already boarded. They could have avoided this if the employees of the airline had simply checked in before boarding. Much was made about the offer to pay up to $1200.00 to someone who would give up his seat. The DR. paid nearly that much for his 1st class seat I can understand why that was not a motivation for him.

The Security that removed him was not airport security, it was a private security company hired by the airlines.

The Dr., well he seems an idiot, a baby, an a$$hole perhaps but in the suit that will be coming I would rather be on his side than the Airlines. The Airlines would be wise to settle and settle quickly to get this out of the news. They will pay through the nose one way or the other.

They will pay through the nose one way or the other.

No. They will not pay through the nose. Future airline travelers will pay through the nose. United will pass those costs on, driving prices slightly higher, permanently. They are clearly going to suffer a short-term blow relative to other airlines, given the tremendous negative publicity (some earned, some not-so-earned). But if they have to settle, then every other airline needs to plan accordingly (regardless of whatever processes they have in place to prevent this sort of thing, they have to accept that there is a non-negligible chance that they will be on the receiving end of this kind of feeding frenzy, and that they will become the payers of someone else's set-for-life judicial lottery winnings).

Future passengers will pay. Higher prices, less choice, more regulation. Few things in life are guaranteed (including, ironically, airline passage). But this is.

“Ok, it is the right of United Airlines to decide who to kick off of a flight”

As for a boarded passenger, your statement only applies under conditions that meet United’s own terms of service, which the situation with the status of how many people were already boarded, the late arriving non-working extra crew members, and Dr Dao did not meet. The airline had only the means of exhausting all possible means of seeking volunteers to get the seats they wanted BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS ALREADY BOARDED. They could have involuntarily “bumped” people before the plane was boarded. It was not the passengers fault they did not do that.