Originally Posted by
Bouncer
Do you remember how much bad PR United got because of an altercation with a customer? Do you think five pax securing someone who is then zip tied to a seat for X hours (lets say five, when a divert is one hour) while screaming, spitting, cursing, bleeding and generally having a meltdown, all being livestreamed by other pax is something ANY airline wants to see?
What if some other pax get tired of them screaming the N word and a couple proceed to punch them a few times while they're zip tied? What if the behavior is being caused by a medical issue (perhaps mixed/wrong medication), that if treated within three hours, would've been non-fatal? The legal jeopardy for any airline is huge if they don't divert.
None of which matters to a government, who is not going to accept the word of an airline that there aren't OTHER combatives aboard since there's clearly at least one. Land. The. Aircraft... or divert out of our airspace.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
Other passengers will livestream it either way. 3 hours back to EWR doesn't make a lot of sense to me when you can push on and offload in LHR or KEF. The flight was closer to those two destinations than EWR, if it was really an emergency to offload. United chose to keep this unruly passenger in a tube for longer than they needed to. At least with LHR or KEF, you're going in the direction you intended to go for the other passengers. What I'm tired of is big organizations placating the one person that is a problem instead of satisfying the majority. You can turn around for one unruly passenger and now you could have several dozen more or hundreds more unruly. United and other airlines have just as much of a duty to those passengers that aren't causing problems.