I disagree, it's quite different. Hypothetically, if they let you board and you get to your seat, and it is empty, they could just leave you be. Hypothetically,

I disagree, it's quite different. Hypothetically, if they let you board and you get to your seat, and it is empty, they could just leave you be. Hypothetically, if you get to your seat, and it's occupied, one of two things could happen: You could deplane and the airline will put you on another flight, or you could somehow convince the person in your seat to let you fly. But this should never even happen! You shouldn't even board! Also, hypothetically, the airline could halt boarding, ask everyone to deplane, pick who they don't want to let on however they want, and let everyone else board. They could do so many things that aren't yanking a person of a plane when they're already seated, involuntarily. All of these hypothetical situations seem far more sane to me. We're focusing on United's wrongdoing because they are the ones who escalated to forcibly remove a passenger from the plane. They did not have to do that.