I think you may be missing the point I’m trying to make which is just that everyone wants to simplify this into a one-point narrative (i.e., either it’s ALL the cops’ fault, or ALL UAL’s fault, or ALL his own fault, etc.) but really it’s the combination of a bunch of poor decisions- some of which in retrospect seem worse than they do when taken in context. Yes airline policies and employees can be held to account for the way they handled the situation, (bad customer service decisions) but only to a degree- it isn’t reasonable to expect them to have foreseen this outcome and/or accuse them of violence. Similarly, claims that Dao himself “deserved it” or was “asking for it” are also unfair, although he was given many chances to behave like an adult that would have prevented him from getting hurt. He didn’t ask to be put in this situation but once he was, his childish behavior and poor decisions played a major role in him getting injured.

To answer your question, I don’t think it necessarily would have happened differently on a United airplane- or Delta or American for that matter- which kind of makes my point. If it didn’t happen on a United plane, why is United getting blamed for it? Because they sold him the ticket & contracted with the airline whose plane this DID happen on. Now, if you still want to blame United (as many in the public do) you have to understand the structure of those contracts, where they come from, and whether they are ethical- but most in the public have lost interest by this point. They don’t want to understand, they want to judge, and most people had done that by the time they saw the picture and read the headline. Once the news outlets sold the story as “United Oversells Flight, Kicks Crap out of Passenger” the tide of public outrage was set in place and trying to gain a deeper understanding once the facts become clearer is a lot less rewarding for most people than moving on to the next group outrage snap judgement.

The public has moved on from this guy and if he thinks he can go round 2 on a sympathy tour as a millionaire and a convicted sexual predator in the “Me Too” era, I wish him luck...