[wetha]

The reason these videos appeal to people is because it returns some power back to the customer being mistreated.

Any fairly frequent flier will have horror stories of being mistreated by airline or border personnel, and most times the only thing you can do is to put up with it. But NOW, after the United incident, it feels like the customer is no longer as helpless as before and can no longer be mistreated with impunity. This is irrespective of validity of any of the viral videos being circulated.

[macspoofing]

>But NOW, after the United incident ...

Which is ironic because the guy was crazy. He was randomly selected to be bumped and the cops had to be called in to haul him off the plane, after pleading with him for half hour. What a self-important jackass - sucks he got a bad break with the lottery but if he doesn't go somebody else will have to take his place. That's not fair either.

[mikeash]

What's not fair is removing a paying passenger against their will for no good reason. United could have just increased the compensation until somebody left willingly. Instead they chose to involve law enforcement, with predictable results.

[macspoofing]

>What's not fair is removing a paying passenger against their will for no good reason.

No, it's not fair, but it wouldn't be fair to remove another passenger because this one felt he was too important to be bumped.

>United could have just increased the compensation until somebody left willingly.

Sure, and United paid for that mistake and then some. But just because they made a mistake doesn't mean the other guy did not act like a psycho.

>they chose to involve law enforcement, with predictable results.

Those aren't predictable results. Predictable results are: "United involved law enforcement, and the passenger left the airplane promptly". A more typical scenario would see him leave way before United called the cops.

[mikeash]

Nobody is saying United should have removed another passenger instead. That's a straw man.

The results may not be what usually happens but they are entirely predictable. Any time you get law enforcement involved, there's a decent chance that violence will ensue. The entire point of law enforcement is to be the sole state-approved user of violence.

[erdojo]

Not everyone agrees that there was "no good reason". I'm sure the 160 people (on the flight the deadhead crew was headed for) who would have been without a flight crew would disagree.

[mikeash]

Why do so many people ignore the possibility of increasing the offered compensation until someone voluntarily gave up their seat? It's baffling.