Originally Posted by sw3

Sure, but if there comes to be a law prohibiting deplaning passengers after boarding, if the airline follows the law, in this case they would be barred from even considering asking for volunteers so there would be no VDBs, much less IDBs. They would be legally compelled to go on with the departure, that's the point of the example complementing the original post. Same thing would happen if airlines voluntarily get to put this in the COC overriding other clauses that let them take passengers out, they would be breaching the COC if they did anything about this situation.

Some people are saying that, once boarded, passengers should be totally immune from deboarding either voluntary or involuntary for any reason whatsoever that is not related to safety or security. But it should make no sense to put a blanket and absolute ban on DBs just because passengers are boarded or because whatever. A multitude of unforeseen situations can happen and airlines should be able to decide if a situation merits doing VDBs or IDBs at any point, as long as there are clear guidelines that exemplify the kinds of situations and cause-effect relationships that merit so. Perhaps VDBs after boarding, or before boarding but with seats already assigned, and IDBs not due to overbooking, could be documented to the FAA (protecting passengers' privacy especially in medical situations) and such statistics published.