But they don't and there's nothing illegal about that. I was just reading an old airline confirmation email I had from December. I've never read all the fine print but basically they have the right to remove you from the plane, you will be reimbursed and you can file a complaint but when asked to leave a plane, you do....and it's in the "contract" that you agree to when buying your ticket. They might be changing the rules about overbooking but they were in place when this man was flying. Flying is a pain in the butt but it's my best option when visiting family....the drive and train would take too long.
I am in full agreement with that part, @Patsy Faye , and I think that the airline handled the whole situation really poorly. They should have found another way to get the crew members where they needed to be and not just taken a paying passenger off of the flight if he did not want to give up his seat and be reimbursed for doing so. I think that he should have been allowed to stay unless there was some safety reason why he had to be removed. This was all very badly handled by the airline staff. At the same time, it seems that he should have known that fighting with the flight crew, and then the security people was only going to make things worse. He should not have been removed from the plane, in my opinion; but he didn't have to create a scene where he had to be forcefully dragged off , either. By the time security was call in to remove him, any option of his remaining on the plane was long gone, and nothing he did was going to change it at that point. It would almost seem like he did this part purposely to force the airline to look bad and award him a lot of money, knowing that it was being videoed by passengers on the plane.
He also inconvenienced every passenger on that plane who had a short time for a connection...I'm sure they all missed their connections. Both the passenger and the officers were at fault the way it ended. When I first heard the story I was appalled at what happened to him but as I saw more and more bits of info about it...I changed my mind.
You have every right to feel as you do having looked at the video just as I do too I didn't like the airlines response the day after either. Now they say, they won't 'drag' people off planes I think the man in question saw and heard that he had support from passengers which made him more stubborn Its a quick fire situation though and I know I'd have hit someone with me handbag if my Fabs was being dragged off ....
Sometimes we watch a video that shows the police reacting to something in a way that appears unreasonable, and most often we never get to see what it was that brought about the reaction. At the same time, we might view people acting angrily to something that might not seem so unreasonable if we had been there. In the situation that I mentioned in an earlier post, where my wife and I were bumped from our flight in New York, not only were we offered no compensation, but had we simply sat where we were told to sit and left it at that, we'd probably still be sitting there. It was necessary to get a little loud, a little rude, and very insistent in order to be able to continue on our way because no one working for the airline cared if we ever left New York. During that same situation, there was another couple and their young child who had been bumped from the same flight. After waiting for hours, they offered the wife and child a seat, but didn't have a seat for the man. When he told them that he was on a trip with his wife and child, and didn't want to be split up on different flights, they told him that their ticket price would be forfeited because they were offering them seats. That's unreasonable, and as long as the airlines continue to treat people in such a manner, people are going to react, some of them in ways that may appear to be unreasonable, and may have crossed the line into unreasonableness, but the airlines have to bear some of the responsibility. Flying is damned expensive, and they are going to have to start giving people something for their money again. I simply choose not to fly, but that's not so easy an option for everyone.
Perhaps a flowing scent of Marijuana thru out the plane could chill everyone down...sorry I just to say that!