Originally Posted by
Imstevek
I didn't get the letter, but my spam filter catches most United stuff.
I find a passenger who won't follow the requests/demands of the crew a security issue. In this case, he may resist demands because he feels his job is more important than the rest of us on board (DYKWIA) or some other arcane reason, but I don't want said passenger determining what requests he's going to follow, and which ones he won't.
I don't support much of what happened in this disgusting incident, but this is a case of everyone involved looking bad, not as one-sided as the general public, and to my surprise, the FT membership, is portraying.
On the one hand, I'd rather not have people choosing which requests to follow. I do recognize that this causes potential issues.
On the other hand, there is such a thing as an unreasonable request and I'd rather not be expected to accommodate those. For example, if you've paid for F/J and the passenger on the other side of the aisle is "uncomfortable" with you despite no verbal or physical contact, is it a reasonable request to have you move back to Y? There have been a few stray stories of this on foreign carriers (including one where I swear I heard that the pax was asked to switch with the "offended" customer's significant other).
Now, I know that reasonable/unreasonable is a subjective matter and there are many of us that would adhere to what many would consider to be an absurd request because we felt it was reasonable (e.g. being offered a go-around-your-...-to-get-to-your-elbow routing as the alternative). But with that being said, if anything there need to be more stringent limits on what is a "reasonable" request from airline staff that one is expected to comply with.