United Airlines had thugs brutally pull a passenger off a plane so it could it seat one of its pilots instead.

This was not a case of overbooking, and pulling a passenger out of per confirmed assigned seat is legally not equivalent to denying boarding.

The CEO of United responded with typical corporate PR manipulation, even telling lies about the poor 69-year-old doctor, until public condemnation made him back down.

Many media outlets publicized the passenger's irrelevant previous criminal history, nothing really horrible, to smear him.

The incident illustrates the point that companies shouldn't be allowed to decide their own "terms and conditions".

If United had kept offering higher and higher rewards for someone to switch to another flight, it would probably have found a willing taker eventually.

There was no reason, under the circumstances, why the thugs should have done what United asked. But I would guess that they didn't give it a second thought. The airlines have the principle that "the passenger is always wrong", and the thugs tend to be people who put a high value on authority and making people obey any sort of authority.

United's high-handedness follows on from the TSA's high-handedness.