United Flight Canceled After Pilot Harassed Over Union Hat Scheme

The USA Today reports that a United Airlines flight from Salt Lake City to Denver was canceled yesterday after the pilot announced that he was was not calm enough to fly. 

From the passenger reports quoted in the article the pilot had not been following the pilot union's hat switch game and right before boarding got an angry call from someone harassing him over wearing his hat when the hat switch was off:

"...the incident stemmed from crewmembers from another United flight observing the pilot wearing his hat."

The pilot announced after boarding that:

"I'm roughly paraphrasing here, but the pilot came on the PA and said, 'some of you may have witnessed an incident I was involved in at the gate. I'm not going to go into the details, but it was an interpersonal confrontation that upset me significantly to the point where I'm not focused enough to fly you to Denver. I feel like I may not be calmed and focused enough to fly to Denver for another hour,' "

I'm certainly no fan of union schemes causing cancellations.  But regardless of the reason, if the pilot really did not feel like he was in the right state of mind to be flying he should have done exactly what he did.  Safety first.  I wouldn't want it any other way.