Would you avoid United Airlines after passenger's mistreatment?

Ratfink (Australia)

The security was very rough with him and that's not justifiable, though he was right as he was allocated a seat. However, when you factor in the fact that three or four people were randomly chosen by a computer to give up their seats and he failed to comply with a lawful request, no matter how brutal it seems at the time it leads to questions about the handling of the entire matter.

Crews deadheading (flying as passengers) are given priority seating as they have to fly a flight the next day in most cases. Not having the tech crew arrive puts the entire airline schedule at risk and can cause quite nasty consequences down the timeline.

However it doesn't excuse the manhandling in such a manner. There are better methods to extract a non-compliant passenger.

In the final summation, United Airlines did themselves no favors in this incident, however in the long term it will be business as usual.

United Airlines employees wave to an aircraft as it prepares to take off from Dulles International Airport in Virginia on a non-stop flight to Beijing.[Bloomberg News]