But it’s their plane. They can throw me off of it for literally any reason they want. If they do it can also be a breach of contract or violation of various laws depending on the why and I would be entitled to compensation or they face criminal charges. But like it’s not like the chair becomes my property once I get on the plane.
I don't understand what you mean by "they can throw me off"--that's only true in the same way that it is possible to do something unlawful, breach a contract, commit a crime, etc. You have rights as a passenger on an airline in which the U.S Government takes a rather active hand regulating. Those rights do not depend on owning the airframe or seat materials.
You have rights, yes, but the exact set of rights is different than most non-flight crew people think.
a very TL;DR summary is that they can throw you out, and you can sue them for it later if it was for invalid reason, but you still get thrown out. Similar rules happen on the sea, which results in hilarious summaries like "yes, a Disney Princess can sentence you to death and do the execution, if specific conditions are met" (condition being "evacuated on escape boat/device of a Disney cruise ship"). The summary is hilarious, but the same applies to plane's captain so long as flight operations are ongoing, including pre-flight preparation after embarking.
It's my body, my legs. I can refuse to leave for literally any reason I want. If I do it can also be a breach of contract or violation of various laws depending on the why and they would be entitled to compensation or I face criminal charges. But like it’s not like I become their property once I get on the plane.
It's their plane which the passenger has paid for a part of, for a duration, and for the transport to a destination. The passenger owns a part of the plane's usage for that time period. Just because tenants merely renting a house doesn't mean the landlord can throw them out of their home.
No, you don't own plane or its usage. The closest is that through many intermediaries, you obtained revocable at will privilege of being transported on vessel captained by X and owned by Y.
Not that simple. Why inconvenience someone who paid for their ticket and not have the staff come on the next plane? There’s an easier solution, find someone to volunteer giving up their seat for a voucher or some attractive offer. People’d volunteer to give up their seat
Unfortunately it’s not always that simple. In the tickets fine print you will often find that if they want to refuse service for whatever reason they can do it. Of course you can always settle in court, however most people don’t want or have the means to.
The law says you have to follow the orders of the captain, and that the captain has the right to remove you for safety purposes. An argument like this would be classed a potential safety issue.
When looking for the reasons behind the growing prevalence of security concerns in modern society (both from governments and companies), one can hardly avoid the conclusion that it's just the perfect justification for anything.
Sure it is, but that’s the law. Write your representatives to get it changed.
The way the passenger was removed was wrong, and potentially illegal (I assume you can’t shoot someone because they are trespassing on your property, presumably you can’t injure them either). I believe United paid some hush money to stop him suing, but I see nothing to show the captain wasn’t allowed to have him removed.
What happened may or may not have been legal (I would guess all involved parties, including the passive bystanders, did something illegal at some point); I believe the discussion is more about how badly the situation has been handled by the company, and consequently: can we trust those companies to operate an extra-judiciary blacklist of passengers?
It got him a multi million dollar payout and actually cost united much more money than that. They got bad press from it and surely a decent number of people who will boycott/avoid them from now on.
