You're wrong. "boarding" comes from the nautical world and has a specific meaning. This is one of the times where the colloquial meaning and legal meaning are i

You're wrong. "boarding" comes from the nautical world and has a specific meaning. This is one of the times where the colloquial meaning and legal meaning are identical. You "board" when you enter the vessel/aircraft. There is a reason they check your ticket at the gate: because that's the legally accepted procedure for verifying you are a paying passenger and transitioning from the "not-boarded" to "boarded" state. Different rules kick in (both by contract and by law) once they scan your ticket and let you climb aboard the craft. The Dr in this case had boarded the plane. If United wanted to bump passengers to make room for crew (ignoring whether that was permissible under the "overbooked" definition), they needed to do it before they let the passengers on the plane. Furthermore that was an entirely knowable event. The moment they started letting people on the plane they already knew the crew members were running late. They could have had the gate agents ask for volunteers before anyone got on. They screwed up twice. There is no defense of United to be had here. Everyone can stop apologizing for them now.