We’ve seen this drill before. Conjure up random scenarios in the name of “balance” because one side speaks up while the other sticks to its line. People who are unconnected to the people who got booted have spoken up and the airline has admitted it may have made a mistake, but still we persist with manufactured facts about unruly crowds.

Have I been on flights that have to return to gate due to an unruly person? Of course I have - more than once. But it’s taken a long time of escalation to get to that point. I was in one of those situations very, very recently, where I watched the whole thing play out (ground staff, cabin crew, eventually the captain). There were a lot of people who wanted that individual off the plane. The captain spoke to them and decided otherwise. And we took on a fairly long delay because of it. And that was for one person. Throwing out 20+ without knowing who did what… that’s… quite something.

Which brings us back to the question: how is AC supposed to right it’s wrongs here when it’s effectively devolved into a “he said”/“she said” with unaffected pax quite vocally disagreeing with AC’s actions. Who’s going to decide which of those individuals was misbehaving and who wasn’t? The same lot who thought they were misbehaving in the first place?

Just pointing out the obvious flaws in your simplism. Using your logic, AC could end up generously compensating the most egregious offenders, and we’d just never know.

With a strong possibility that they themselves wouldn’t know.

Which just goes to demonstrate that being a little more deliberate with this Instead of taking off with removed pax’ cabin baggage might have been the smarter play,