There are a million hot takes on the United fiasco. Here’s a quick one from me.
United had legal rights concerning who was going to be transported on that airplane. The passenger they had hauled off by the police was presumably removed based on some variety of trespass.
It’s a good illustration that laws and, in particular, property laws are creatures of government, ultimately enforced by government employees — sometimes through use of force under color of law. “Small government” advocates who support strong enforcement of property rights aren’t really promoting “less” government so much as they are asking that government favor their priorities.
There is nothing bad or unusual about this, necessarily. Property rights are certainly a very valuable component of a functional society. Advocating that government favor your priorities is a core feature of democracy. But acknowledging that you’re not different from other members of the democracy promoting their priorities gets you into the messy business of having to argue about why your priorities are better than their priorities. The myth of small government or the conceit that property isn’t really government is an effort to let private property advocates avoid having to make that case.
I’m not an attorney, but I am a pilot with a commercial certificate and experience in for hire operations.
Besides property law and United’s Contract of Carriage, any airline (or any flight crewmember on a a private flight, for that matter) has broad authority to give mandatory instructions to passengers under the Federal Aviation Regulations. Specifically, 14 CRF § 121.580 Prohibition on interference with crewmembers. “No person may assault, threaten, intimidate, or interfere with a crewmember in the performance of the crewmember’s duties aboard an aircraft being operated under this part.”
The FARs have been interpreted to give crewmembers extremely broad authority. If a flight attendant tells you to put your seat in the upright position, or to leave your bag behind during an evacuation, or to get off of the airplane, and you disregard that instruction, you are “interfereing” with a crewmember, and they have the full force and authority of the State behind them.
This broad authority is obviously intended to give the crew the ability in an emergency to do what needs to be done to save ship, life and limb, something like the authority of a senior officer in a life boat, but it doesn’t have to be a declared emergency for them to use that authority. Just disregard any instruction from a fight attendant on your next trip and see what happens.