I hope you documented this at the time. If not, things will be much harder for you.

You have two main directions of recourse: Against the other passenger, and against the airline.

Additionally, against the passenger you have criminal and civil directions to proceed. If the other passenger made you fear for your safety, that could be assault.

But again, your success depends a lot on what you documented at the time.

And, you should really decide what you define as success. Is your goal that United does a better job with situations like this in the future? Is your goal greater compensation? Is your goal that the ....... never flies again?

Do keep in mind that there was pretty much NO WAY United was going to call you. Too easy for that to turn into a we-said-they-said issue later. They'll want to communicate with you through written channels.


But, overall, it's going to be tough for us to help you without details, and it would be a bad idea for you to share details publicly, so everyone else's advice to talk to a lawyer is the best advice. I'm just trying to manage your expectations - unfortunately we are all at risk of occasional interaction with .......s. If I felt like the staff did a reasonable job of trying to handle the situation, I'd take the $1k and call it a day. Had I had my wits about me at the time, I probably would have also filed a police report upon landing, but if I didn't for whatever reason, would probably chalk that up to wouldda-couldda.