It's a bad look, for sure. So what is an airline supposed to do in these instances? Presuming the overbooking is necessary to maintain reasonable rates, or whatever, and that all airline personnel on board were essential: If they're over capacity, they can't fly. Someone has to go. The airline reserves the right to cancel a reservation and remove passengers in order to comply with federal regulations. Do they sit on the tarmac indefinitely, and make everyone who wasn't randomly selected suffer the consequences? Do they allow a person who is no longer a passenger to effectively hold the plane hostage? I'm not saying the airline did everything possible to avoid this outcome--they manifestly did not--but at the end of the list of possible resolutions exists the option, or necessity, of forcibly removing a person from the aircraft. It only became an outrage because he squealed and flopped around like a drama queen.

The airline deserves the bad press for the way they handled it, skipping from resolution option C or D, directly to option Z. And the doctor ought to be embarrassed for how he behaved in response.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W