Questions

Overall, I have three major questions after this incident:

1. When the police arrests someone mistakenly in the US and the person misses his flight, who is responsible for arranging the missed flight? Is it the airline (I am guessing no) or the police (I am guessing they would just say no?) or the passenger (the most likely)? If it is the passenger, how fair is it? Is there any law/rule that protects passengers in this case??? I am not a US citizen, so I really cannot talk to my Senator to take action on this but I think there should be some protection/law in similar cases if it doesn't exit already.

2. When an airport agent issues a new paper ticket, is it a valid ticket? On the paper, it says "NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL" while it seems like these paper tickets come with a new e-ticket number. What does this statement mean? Couldn't find the answer online...From my conversation with two airlines, I am left with an impression that they didn't really care about the paper ticket my father was given by the United agent at O'Hare. Then why issue a ticket like that if they can just ignore it??? I am puzzled...

 3. Suppose Lufthansa's claim was correct: United didn't confirm with Lufthansa about the first class (but again, this is really odd for their joint venture route). The Lufthansa agent faced two choices: either first class or economy class for a passenger in business but business was full. I have seen airlines upgrade passengers rather than downgrade. I have seen downgrades when there was no higher class was available or operated. The Lufthansa agent saw (actually they called the police) someone getting arrested and then later they were informed it was a mistake. They saw everything, how scared and worried my mother (and father) was. And then next day, they chose to downgrade even though there was an option to upgrade (and United "requested" for it according to their claim). Am I the only one who thinks what Lufthansa did is a bit too much? Why would Lufthansa do such a thing? If I were the agent, I wouldn't be able to tell two old foreign passengers to be downgraded after this kind of incident. Is it because Lufthansa thought foreign passengers who cannot speak English won't complain? Or is it something else? Maybe because they were old? or because my father was arrested, so there must be something wrong with him even though the police said it was a mistake? Or they are super protective of their first class? People like my parents (old people, non-English speakers, potential criminals even they are falsely accused) are not allowed to fly???

Unless there is a very valid point to defend Lufthansa, I find their action absolutely disgraceful and mean. But again, I might be more emotional (because it happened to my parents when I really wanted them to have fun, and it ruined the entire mood of the trip...) and might not be able to think through possible reasons well. Yet again, Lufthansa customer service is not really helping here...