—–Original Message—–
From: R
Sent: Tue 4/11/2017 2:21 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: incident on united airlines plane

Dear Dr. Block, Can you articulate briefly a libertarian perspective on the incident in which a man was forcibly removed from a United Airlines plane in Chicago? Twitter is raging with social justice warrior condemnations of United’s action in having him removed. A lot of that Twitter commentary revolves around accusations of racism against United. Some of it revolves around the law of transportation, which SJWs claim does not allow a carrier to remove a man from a plane once he’s boarded it. The property from which he was removed is presumably owned by United. However, it was sitting on “public” land–an airport terminal. That would mean that United has entered into a contract with the airport and must therefore agree to its rules. I’m sure that any thoughts you might have would be of wide interest. My position is that anyone has the right to remove anyone from his property. The removed man in this case received monetary compensation. Thank you. http://abcnews.go.com/US/video-shows-man-dragged-off-united-plane/story?id=46702631
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4401980/Dr-dragged-United-swapped-drugs-secret-gay-sex.html

Dear R: In my view, United had no right to remove any paying customer to whom they had issued a ticket, merely because they were overbooked. UA should have, instead, offered both that person and, all others, higher and higher buyout prices until they had one person leave that flight voluntarily. Some people think that private property rights give United the right to remove any passenger from any flight for any reason since they owned it. Not so. Of course, they may do so to an unruly or threatening passenger, but that was not true in this case. The passenger in question did not become violent until the authorities tried to remove him forcibly, and improperly. In effect, this passenger “rented” a seat on that plane, and, as long as he abided by the contract (sit quietly, behave, etc.) they had no right at all to expel him from the plane. He in effect “owned” that seat for the duration of the flight. When a landlord gives a two-year lease to a tenant, even though the former owns the building, the latter in effect “owns” that one apartment for the duration (provided of course he behaves himself.) Yes, this passenger received monetary compensation, but he did not AGREE to take it in lieu of his paid for trip

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