See also discussion at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...-airplane.html.
The author's original blog post,
http://vancegilbert.com/index.php?pa...g&display=2245, has some unfortunate spelling errors (e.g. "isle" for aisle, "bursar" for purser) but tells a compelling story:
* He was traveling on a full E170 operating as United Express BOS-IAD.
* He was asked to stow his fanny pack in an overhead bin for takeoff and he volunteered to stow it underseat instead.
* He was reading a book about aircraft from the first half of the 20th century.
* He observed the flight crew become agitated as the aircraft taxiied away from the gate; later, the aircraft returned to the gate.
* He was asked to leave the plane and talk to state police, who verified that he had stowed his fanny pack underseat and that he was reading a book about old airplanes, apologized for the inconvenience, and said he could re-board the aircraft.
* He missed his connection and canceled his onward trip.
The traveler reports that he felt singled out and was especially hurt because he is black.
I wonder whether UA will apologize for Shuttle America's behavior here. From this traveler's report, it sounds like they did something pretty silly and did not do a great job of proactively fixing the CS problem they had created.