Is there actually any evidence that people get removed from flights more nowadays? With 100s of millions of domestic people-flights a year we're bound to see a small number of absurd events, like airline employees in a bad mood (not uncommon) pushed over the edge by virtually nothing. Of course I'm not defending the ridiculous removals, but I'm trying to put it into perspective.
I flew a lot as a child in the 80s, and every now and then I'd see someone kicked off a flight. It was usually for drunkedness, but my point is the right to remove a passenger at the airline employee's discretion has existed for decades. I know Seinfeld is fiction, but there's a pretty funny episode from 1995 where the pilot kicks seinfeld off a flight because seinfeld had kicked him out of his comedy show earlier that weekend.
I flew a lot as a child in the 80s, and every now and then I'd see someone kicked off a flight. It was usually for drunkedness, but my point is the right to remove a passenger at the airline employee's discretion has existed for decades. I know Seinfeld is fiction, but there's a pretty funny episode from 1995 where the pilot kicks seinfeld off a flight because seinfeld had kicked him out of his comedy show earlier that weekend.