Tchiowa

UA's Contract of Carriage says that if the pilot has to leave the cabin to attend to a disturbance, they have the right to remove you from the aircraft.

Also, if you fail to comply with an order from the FA.

Under the section: "RULE 21 REFUSAL TO TRANSPORT"

"UA shall have the right to refuse to transport or shall have the right to remove from the aircraft at any point, any Passenger for the following reasons:"

"Passengers who fail to comply with or interfere with the duties of the members of the flight crew"

"Passengers who, through and as a result of their conduct, cause a disturbance such that the captain or member of the cockpit crew must leave the cockpit in order to attend to the disturbance"

dcpdxtrans

Just told my wife this story. Besides being aghast at the woman, as was I,, she reminded me when she had to pump on the plane when she had to take a quick biz trip. And how the guy next to her was "nervous!" OP should have held his ground.

Btw, the Mrs liked learning about instructions from GA v FC & the consequences thereof. This may be one of the few times she was happy I was reading FT...

djohannw

All nicely said and done, however it probably would not pass any legal review in Germany. These T&Cs must not contain anything unilaterally penalizing the customer, so a clause that basically includes a "for any reason"-statement will just be declared invalid by a German court. Similar a clause that getting cockpit-crew out of their seats alone allows you to be thrown out will not be seen as valid. All this will not alter the fact that the flight leaves without you, but legally you will have a recourse in Germany.

For any action taken there needs to be a solid reason behind this, and as pointed out, just because one passenger was uncomfortable sitting next to the other certainly will not be deemed a sufficient reason...

Greetings - Dirk

Germanfflyer

Not only in Germany but anywhere in the world - also the T+C state a "duty" ......now what they asked is not even close to a duty - and no captain in his right mind would make a fool out of him getting involved in such a thing!
At the end of the day he has to justify the cost + delay for throwing off a pax without any valid reason!
UA would not be thrilled having to pay for the little power trip of a FA......

PS: UA T+C are invalid in most of Europe....for many reasons...

LaserSailor

There is a lot of flyer talk courage about taking airlines to court. You have no right to any seat on any airline, they are free to move you as they see fit., and will do for a wide range of reasons covered in many threads.

You can refuse to take the seat and ask for accommodation on a different flight, in which case you give up IDB and EU comp.

I think we sometimes get carried away with this stuff. I certainly don't want someone new coming here for advice reading some this stuff and trying it on my flight

Kacee

Yes absolutely. And once the passenger disobeys the captain it's game over, regardless which country you're in. Captain can legitimately say I did not want to transport a disruptive passenger who would not obey crewmember instructions.

djohannw

If they have a legit reason for that then this in fact is OK, but unless it is customary to just reassign seats at will for a certain airline doing this without any meaningful reason and then deboarding a passenger because of his resistance will certainly not relief an airline from their IDB-liability...

Greetings - Dirk

Germanfflyer

Absolutely once they issued a borading pass - they can not take the seat away from you unless they find out the seat is not save - but certainly not because they just feel like it!

Ans also again - the captain would have to justify his action at a later point in time.......so get real - he would not interfere in such a case!

What is he going to write in his report ..... we spend xxxx$ for airport fees and delays to unload luggage because a passenger did not want to trade his seat....so I kicked him off?

Totally unreal....

I admit I would be a bit uncomfortable to pick such a fight in the US - as the legal system is a bit fishy in my eyes - but still would get a supervisor before I would move...and as far as I know the captain is not even in charge until the aircraft door is closed.
Contrary I totally would refuse to do so in Germany where I know this would go no where...

And of course it would also depend on how desperate I am to take THIS flight...

Germanfflyer

So if the FA tells you to drink 4 oz of warm milk you just say - Yes Sir!

Kacee

How about a real world scenario?

FA tells passenger to change seats. Passenger refuses. FA reports to Captain that passenger will not comply with crew member instructions, became argumentative and disruptive, and that FA feels threatened by passenger's conduct. Captain speaks with passenger. Tells him "I have a report from my FA that you are causing problems. I don't have time to get into 'he said, she said.' I need you to assure me that you will follow crew member instructions on this flight."

Passenger continues to argue that he is right, and FA is wrong, and refuses to confirm that he will follow crew member instructions during the flight. Passenger is properly removed from the aircraft.

theddo

Every single post you have made to this thread have been wrong, please stop posting garbage. That is not how consumer protection laws work in Europe and the consumer is protected from UA's CoC which are totally unenforceable.

If the captain feels like explaining why UA has to pay for any damages suffered by a passenger because the passenger wanted to sit in a seat and not being discriminated against (which actually also is a crime in Europe, UA cannot offer a worse product based on gender) that's fine. It probably wouldn't be cheap, and that is regardless of anyone actually successfully suing UA.

Germanfflyer

Where is the difference to FA tells passenger to drink warm milk?

It would be just as random....

Anyway once a boarding pass is issued and the seat is save - there is NO WAY a FA can force a passenger to change so his/ her friend is more comfortable....
And again a captain will not engage - first because we are still on the ground 2. because he will have a hell of a time explaining this + the $$$ lost to his boss!

djohannw

This may be the result if the captain is in fact just ignorant. But in any case he will be looking for a solution to get his job done in a sensible way, he will at least listen to the case and both parties involved and then makes a decision. If he does not, that would be considered abuse of power under German law, btw..

That said the captain might get that passenger removed from the plane, but it will be pretty expensive for UA if the passenger is going after them based on the above mentioned violations (anti-discrimination, abuse of power) and the totally unreasonable request leading to that situation.

Greetings - Dirk

Kacee

I would be interested to read one of these decisions awarding damages to a passenger for being wrongly removed from an aircraft. Please provide citation(s). Thanks!

btw, there are numerous decisions in the U.S. assessing monetary penalties against the passenger for causing an on-board disturbance. Two of them are cited in an earlier post upthread.

JVPhoto

So many uses of the masculine pronoun for the Captain...what if IT is a female?

The Captain is always going to side with the flight attendant & if you argue more than one or two back and forth you are off the plane. I would say this with near 100% certainty on any US airline regardless of where its parked.