Originally Posted by scottishpoet

I am sorry but the captain deciding to return to stand is not a decision that the captain would have been taken lightly. I have sat on the apron for 3 hours at heathrow as the captain did not want to return to stand, albiet the circumstances were different.

I doubt that police boarding the aircraft to escort a passenger off is an everyday occurence either,

I do sympathise with the passenger if his nanny was downgraded and it scuppered his plans, but there is a time to decide not to argue any longer, . This gentleman seems to have got that badly wrong.

As you said in your post "this had gone on for some considerable time and we were .... extremely cross"

Did he really believe that by dragging it out for a considerable period that the situation would somehow change. He asked, he was told no. Asked again, told no again, why keep on asking for a considerable period? If he was unhappy at the downgrade he should have refused to board

I am sorry but while I sympathse with him that his plans were scuppered, everything I read about this suggests he just did not know when to let go.

How often have you known the plane to return to stand to have the police escort someone off the plane before departure? In 35 years of flying I have seen it happen once. I suspect most people here have never seen it happen