Interesting. I am not convinced that 91.3 and 91.11 CFR 14 (authority of the pilot in command, no interference with crew members) is suspended once the airplane is stationary on the ground, but at least it's a somewhat informed argument (which, as I've said, is very rare in the whole media bedlam).
There is the question as to when something counts as an aviation accident (because you do not want something to count as an aviation accident when the cockpit window cleaner falls of the ladder, but you do want to count something as an aviation accident when, say, something happens during taxi - even if you're not flying yet. But where do you draw the line?)
So, ICAO defines an accident to be "An occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight until such time as all such persons have disembarked" and fulfilling various further criteria.
So, according to that definition the airplane was "in operation".
Legal hair splitting aside: there is a line that a company can not and should not cross, which is to alienate its paying customers. Once you pass that point it stops to matter whether or not you were legally in your right, you've lost in the one court that matters: the court of commerce.
If customers can no longer trust you to treat them with even the lowest degree of respect (and bodily integrity, already a sore point with air travelers is undeniably a part of that) then you're in trouble.
Witness the stock markets response today, no amount of legal wrangling will make that kind of beating right, besides the obvious ethical angles.
UA failed, then failed again during their initial apology and now may be able to put this behind them but it will be a very costly lesson.
1. Paradoxically, I'm not sure they'll have significant commercial losses. Discriminating flyers weren't flying United before, I'd think, and most of those screaming now might well book United a week hence if it's $3.50 cheaper than the alternatives.
2. Companies (or any entity, really) should resist attempts to circumvent rules by cheating, e.g. by throwing a tantrum at the check-in counter when you don't get an upgrade. So, when the Involuntary Denied Boarding lottery comes up, and you don't get a seat, do you think it would be ok to force your way onto the plane and refuse to get off, in the hope that they might chose someone else? If not, how would you deal with such a case?
2 is incorrect. The people were already on the plane, it was not overbooked (but booked to capacity) and the people replacing the paying passengers were deadheading crew.
So there was absolutely no 'cheating' on the part of the passengers but plenty on the side of the airline, starting with claiming they were overbooked which they really weren't.
Deadheading crew has higher priority than pax, because without crew planeloads of other pax don't fly. The airline had, for operational reasons, fewer seats than pax with confirmed reservations. Do you call it overbooked or not, who cares: something has to give, as is anticipated in the conditions of carriage, an entirely normal thing: sometimes you might not get on a flight, or even be bumped off a flight.
Well, you may not care but that seems to be a major point. As is the fact that the airline had other options than to use violence such as offering passengers more than $800 to leave (which for sure would have been a more cost efficient solution) or to realize that such a situation should have been avoided in the first place.
Having the right to do something does not automatically translate into always being right to exercise that right, especially given the bigger picture. Even the CEO of United Airlines seems to disagree with you now. Also: first offering $800 and if refused categorically, then deciding to exercise your right to initiate a lottery to find 'volunteers' is dumb, either you have the right and exercise it or you hold an impromptu auction but to first offer a bit of money (usually in $50 vouchers each of which is valid as a discount on a single future flight and which can't be combined) and if that doesn't work to resort to violence is not going to go down well.
Given the ways in which this could have played out (I don't think it is a stretch to imagine that other passengers could have come to the defense of the old man) they got lucky.
