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Man Booted From Southwest Flight and Threatened With Arrest After Critical Tweet
CanHasDIY writes The old saying goes, "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." A man learned the consequences Sunday, after Tweeting about his experience with a rude Southwest gate attendant: "A Minnesota man and his two sons were asked to leave a Southwest Airlines flight after the man sent a tweet complaining about being treated rudely by a gate agent. Duff Watson said he was flying from Denver to Minneapolis on Sunday and tried to board in a spot for frequent flyer privileges he held and take his sons, ages 6 and 9, with him, even though they had a later spot to board the plane. The agent told him that he would have to wait if he wanted to board with his children. Watson replied that he had boarded early with them before and then sent out a tweet that read 'RUDEST AGENT IN DENVER. KIMBERLY S. GATE C39. NOT HAPPY @SWA.' Watson told TV broadcaster KARE in Minneapolis on Wednesday that after he boarded, an announcement came over the plane asking his family to exit the aircraft. Once at the gate, the agent said that unless the tweet was deleted, police would be called and the family would not be allowed back onboard." He gave into the threat, deleted the Tweet, and was allowed to board a later flight. Southwest, as one could have predicted, offered a boilerplate "apology" and vouchers.
Kimberly sure sounds like a cunt.
Using publically visible information (nametag & gate sign) to state an opinion constitutes harassment?
God help the reviewers on Yelp or Angie'sList who give their opinions on different businesses.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
So any online criticism of any company has to be a "happy" criticism? The "truth" is no longer welcome? What a screwed up world.
Pulling a family off a flight and threatening to summon the police seems pretty intense. They must have done something very bad. What? One of them tweeted about poor customer service before entering the aircraft? That's it?
Did the SWA agent seriously think that threatening the family with not being able to fly and reporting the man to the police (for what?) unless he deleted the tweet would be the end of it? Did the agent think the whole thing would be erased from everyone's memory and it would be as if nobody complained? That's not the way it works. Now everyone in her management chain knows who she is, and not in a good way. Creating a PR incident like this will not go without notice. It's a variant of the Streisand effect.
It's not important to the story, but at least one airline I've flown has figured out that it's good customer service to allow people who spend a lot of money travelling on their airline have their children treated to the same boarding privilege - especially as it costs the airline nothing to do so.
How did Southwest find out about this tweet?
Do they have a team of people sitting around watching a Twitter feed, so that if anyone mentions Southwest they can pounce?
If so, good job guys! You really saved the day here. SWA stock is going to go up tomorrow for sure! :^)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The passenger is to blame because the airline threatened legal action over something that wasn't illegal?
Passenger is an idiot, SWA was criminal.
Why do you assume her consent would be required?
The airport is a public place and there is little right to privacy or anonymity when in public... doubly so when you are wearing a name tag.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Asking customers or others to leave a business has put way too much power in the hands of people unable to handle it. Situations like this deserve a court hearing. At times it may even be in opposition to the Americans With Disabilities Act. For example a stroke victim or a person suffering a mental condition may exhibit unpopular behaviors as a direct consequence of their condition just a Turret's syndrome might cause cursing or obscene utterances. Businesses as well as individuals have to suffer the effects just as the person who bears the illness suffers the effects. Depending upon who is doing the looking even drunken or drug induced behaviors may be a disability. We can not have a pretense that the behavior of an ill person is somehow not part of that person as control is often beyond any abilities that they may have to resist the behaviors. As long as they are non violent I can't see any business denying them access.
Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. But this immediate rush to blame/defend lets rumors fly around while the truth takes its time.
harassment/hrasm()nt,harsm()nt/
noun
aggressive pressure or intimidation.
What kind of sycophant would label this tweet as harassment?
Also, what type of asshole employee would separate a man from his two young children?
Finally, it would be great to see the 180 degree flip in reaction if the airline attendant had been male and the passenger had been female with her two young children.
For those not familiar with southwest: There is no assigned seating. People board in three groups, A (frequent flyers, people paying extra for early boarding), B and C (everyone else, numbered by check in order). Long story short, he bought the cheap tickets for his kids and wanted a free upgrade. He then threw a fit when he didn't get his way.
After all, he committed several unforgivable sins in a police state:
1. Being critical of authority
2. Having an opinion about authority, instead of accepting it as god-like
3. Communicating said opinion
I see sedition, inciting violence and refusing to let proper authority mishandle him. Of course, if he let them call the police, he would probably have been shot.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
For those who don't know, boarding order is critical on Southwest. You don't get a seat assignment, its first-come-first-serve, like riding a bus, once you get on the plane.
You get a boarding pass with A 1 thru 60, B 1 thru 60, or C 1 thru 60 and everyone boards in that order. The A people get great seats and C people get crap (center seats, back of the plane, no seats together for people traveling together, etc).
Frequent fliers get to skip ahead board between A and B groups (assuming they didn't have and A anyway) which still has lots of good seats free. Families traveling with children 4 or under also get to board before the B group (so they can get seats together).
This guy probably had high number B or C tickets and wanted to use his "A-list" frequent flier status to board early and get 3 seats together with his kids. But his kids didn't have "A-list" status and where too old to qualify for family boarding so they would have wait for their high boarding number to get on the plane.
SWA is negligent to their stockholders for not keeping up with the times. They should know all about twitter and the effects 1 annoyed passenger can have. It is a matter of training and putting procedures in place. The Gate attendant was in the right, and could have just made the point that she would be annoying the other priority passengers by giving him priority when he was not due it. SWA management completely mishandled it and blew it out of all proportion by stopping the flight and yanking the passengers thereby making a newsworthy story and giving themselves a very expensive case of bad publicity. It could have been handled by just a tweet explaining the policy and why putting him ahead of others would have been bad for other passengers. Then it would not have been a news story.
I would have made a 2nd tweet that Southwest threatened police intervention due to the 1st tweet then asked for the city police (not the airport police)
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
Not disagreeing, but clarifying
The way I read it, he had a 1st class ticket, but his kids were traveling economy. So he was trying to board them at the same time as first class, even though they were not.
On his other leg, the boarding agent allowed it. But on this portion the boarding agents disagreed.
So, rather than recognizing that the other agent had been extra nice granting him a privilege, he disparaged the one who followed the rules.
I'm sure there is more to the story, but the whole thing won't come out cause SW and the agent won't say anything else.
I also don't doubt that someone went a little excessive, but I suspect both sides overreacted.
Every time I fly Southwest, their people are energetic and happy. They are probably the best in the business, probably a class unto themselves. This guy however, with what information has been let out, had to be extreme. I'd "luv" to hear what other passengers thought of his behavior!
my guess is that things were not as one sided as this story leads to believe.
just because a passenger is a customer that should be treated with respect does NOT mean that the passenger doesn't have to follow crewmember instructions. if the passenger was being particularly difficult because he had his two snowflakes in tow and did not want to abide by Southwest's procedures, he should not be allowed on the plane.
given what's happened recently in aviation, one would think safety is important. safety shouldn't be shrugged off merely because a passenger whines when he doesn't get out of the ordinary preferential treatment.
depends. Are they backseat chair kickers?
airports are reduced rights zones after 9/11
Awesome would have been if he went all dirty harry on "Kimberly".
"Go ahead, make my day..."
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
to tweet her rudeness after you land.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
This. As a father with kids, there is a serious double standard. Particularly with women. When my wife goes places with my daughter, she gets helped out, and treated like a parent. When I do the same, it only seems to be other fathers who give me a hand.
Men really need to start to stand up for equal rights.
ie. their boarding system is utter shit to begin with.
A matter of opinion. It works very well if you pre-print your boarding passes 24 hours before departure time. I have *NEVER* had anything but A or B.
Southwest (who still does not charge for 2 checked bags) has always treated my wife and I well. We have traveled with our grand children many times.
If you know and follow the well established and well know rules for obtaining your boarding pass and boarding the jet, it's a very smooth process.
But on the other hand, if you're an "entitled power flyer", your asshole attitude will get you nowhere.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
The way I read it, he had a 1st class ticket, but his kids were traveling economy. So he was trying to board them at the same time as first class, even though they were not.
There is only one class on Southwest: Cattle Class. When you check in prior to your flight, you are assigned a boarding group and number. Groups are A, B, and C from 1 through 60. A1 through A15 are reserved for Business Select and other special privileges (including frequent flier miles). Other than getting to board earlier and have a wider selection of seats, they are all the same.
According to Southwest's policy, people travelling together but with different boarding positions have the option to board together, provided the person higher up in line waits with the people further back. How this applies to families, I'm fuzzy on, but I would assume if you have a business select or other pass that allows boarding in the A1 through A15 group, it would make sense to have young children (say, under 10 years old) board with you. It seems like this is what the guy had done on several flights previously.
What the gate agent did was apply the boarding policy in the strictest possible terms, which IMO was an asshole move. But it was still technically according to policy. Did he get lucky, or was this particular agent just being overly strict? Could be either or. Pulling them off the flight for a tweet, however, was completely uncalled for. Threatening to call the police unless he deleted said tweet was harassment, plain and simple. Plus, how in the hell did she figure out who it was so quickly? Was she on twitter while she was supposed to be working, or did some corporate wonk call the gate?
I've been a customer of Southwest for a while, but how they handle this in the long run will determine wether or not I continue to be.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
+3
I see this and experience this often. So much so that when out with my wife and kids I'll get her to ask for things or handle certain things because she will get much better treatment than I despite the fact that I'm usually a lot more polite than my wife.
This really does need fixing but these days I think most men feel like they can't even mention it because they have lost before they start. Women's rights have done a lot for them but eventually they will pass the goal and go too far. I even read recently I can't remember her name but she is supposedly the founder of the woman's rights movement and she wrote that she made a mistake and regrets it and that men should be men and that we each have unique roles to play.
Anyway, this was off topic but it's one of those things that needs attention.
http://definitions.uslegal.com...
"A public place is generally an indoor or outdoor area, whether privately or publicly owned, to which the public have access by right or by invitation, expressed or implied, whether by payment of money or not, but not a place when used exclusively by one or more individuals for a private gathering or other personal purpose."
US airports are public places. Just because it is private property doesn't automatically mean it's not a public space. If you turn your home into a B&B, it becomes a public space, even though it is your private property. You can have private clubhouses and private airports but the moment you leave the door unlocked and put up a sign that you're open to the public, the presumption of privacy is gone.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I (an American) just went on a vacation where I entered Russia, then France, then Russia, then the US on my way home. It went like this:
Russia: "What plane did you get off of?" "OK, [stamp]"
France: "Welcome! [stamp]"
Russia: "Welcome back, Tovarish! [stamp]"
US: "Spread 'em, Cocksucker. What's this in your bag? Get in this line - no, the other line! Papers, please! Is this your family? Who packed your suitcase? Look into the camera. Make your wife look into the camera. Submit to bacterial scanning. Put your bags in the X-Ray machine and leave them there until they start to smoke. OK, Meatwad, we'll let you in, but consider this a warning!"
This place has gotten so xenophobic it's silly.
Its actually written in the rules: if you, the person with the medallion status, are the one booking the flight and are also traveling then everyone in your booking gets the same privileges as you would traveling alone. Early boarding, upgrade eligibility, etc. Its a normal rule with all airlines.
That's because @SWA is not SWA's official twitter feed.
https://twitter.com/SouthwestAir
Beware of the Leopard.
Intercom: "You are now free to get the fuck off mah plane."
We also would have accepted:
Intercom: "You are not free to tweet about our customer service."
If there was any good chance of a reasoning being on the other end of her call to the police, it would have been worth it to let her call and then have the LEO "explain" to her the (unfortunately rare) consequences of filing a false complaint, then watching HER be arrested for disrupting the flight. As it is, of course, ...
Airports are NOT public places, particularly the Gates at airports.
They are called places of public accommodation just like restaurants. There is zero expectation of privacy for the employees in areas where there is customer access. Members of the public have access to them. Specifically... any members of the public who have paid a fee and obtained a ticket.
Don't lie.
You'll pick the most convenient time or cheapest price, regardless of the airline company.
Kimberly did not volunteer the information for internet signage. Harassment.
Nor do businesses and people reported to the better business bureau, angie's list, amazon.com, ebay and similar rating services. While the tweet seems harsh based on the given information, the father didn't do anything but report tweet her name that was visible on her publicly displayed name badge. Airlines, just like stores, have employees where such badges so the public knows who has done them wrong or right and can report to management the actions.
While the tweet seems harsh given the limited information presented and probably foolish, it isn't harassment. Likewise, over-reacting to an airline employee normally will get you removed from a plane and possibly arrested, so he should be happy that he was only delayed in his trip.
Also, what type of asshole employee would separate a man from his two young children?
The employee suggested no such thing. She said that the man would have to wait until his children were able to board, and then they could board together.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So someone at swa is monitoring @swa mentions in realtime actively looking for disparaging tweets and also with a passenger list AND their twitter handle and when said tweets come in has the authority to hotline a gate to hold a plane based on said tweet alone? i mean how else did this plane not already take off? I just dont get the whole timing - good to know i can ground some random plane in california from my couch in missouri
what is really interesting is how fast Sh!tWest A!r was able to intercept a message from one of its passengers and direct an action against that person. If it's fair to wire tap a customers communications, then it's ok to wire tap the wire tapper?
I can see this as a valid post on Angies List, and Yelp.
I'm wondering a little differently. I wonder how plugged in that gate representative must of been to find and successfully identify the source of the tweet and call the family off the plane before it left.
I say this because I don't see some SWA social media monitoring department demanding the tweet be removed in that fashion. I figure it was the 'dissed' gate rep herself that did it.
I don't read AC A human right
That was my knee-jerk reaction as well. Thinking it though, SouthWest must have a group dedicated to monitoring social media postings in order to respond that quickly. Surely this group is familiar with the Streisand Effect, and would not take such action against the passenger. Rather, I suspect the punitive action came from the same gate attendant that the passenger complained about.
Gate attendant gets pissy with passenger -> passenger posts complaint -> SW social media group reads complaint -> SW calls gate attendant and tells her to fix it (i.e. apologize) or it will come up at her performance review -> pissy gate attendant calls passenger back to the gate and threatens him.
Not an option in the mathematically challenged US of A where explaining "every other", even numbers, odd numbers would take all the allotted time.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Yeah had this out once. My wife took one or two of the kids into a store. I have the other two or three. Some lady started ranting at me about lazy etc not going in.
I said so should I wake up the younger two or leave them in the van by themselves. Shut her the hell up very quickly. Its amazing the BS dad's get in public.
What first amendment rights were violated? I'm absolutely serious about this; please point to any violation of first amendment rights anywhere in here.
While you do so, remember that the first amendment restricts the actions of the *government* - that is, it prohibits the making of laws that do certain things - and has absolutely nothing to do with the private sector. Here, let me quote it for you (emphasis mine):
So, which law did SWAirlines cause Congress to pass that violated these people's first amendment rights? Go on, point it out please.
Or were you just mouthing off about stuff you don't understand, trying to get people riled up about an issue that doesn't even exist? Because that... well, let's just say it speaks volumes about your intelligence (and that of the person who modded you up). Volumes that I doubt you would ever read, since apparently you can't be bothered to read (or at least, understand) one of the most important *sentences* ever committed to text in the history of this nation...
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Any way you want it to; you're soooo awesome.
Requiem for the American Dream
Doubtful. More plausible is that the guy bragged to the flight attendand that he sent the tweet.
Lol. You realize women get helped out because men want to get into their pants right? Even if it means just a 0.0001% chance, that's still more than 0% so men play the lottery.
Its just that women are biologically conditioned not to realize that - instead they think guys are being "sweet" and "kind."
If they did recognize it for what it was, they would be so creeped out that they would never talk to a guy again and that would be the end of the human race in one generation.
It isn't a privilege, it just looks like one to someone who can't see the big picture.
And exactly THAT is why it is not as "harmless" to call out names on the public internet as some posters here claimed it was.
Thank you for the demonstration.
bickerdyke
Also, what type of asshole employee would separate a man from his two young children?
Here's the part most stories won't include about this incident. The father was an A passenger meaning he gets to board first. Southwest also has B and C classifications.
Someone called in to the talk show I was listening who was also an A passenger and explained the complete process. A passengers board first, then B and C. However, since the person had children, despite his A status, he would have boarded between the A and B groups. That is Southwest policy and has been since whenever.
This person attempted to circumvent the established policy by trying to pull a "Do you know who I am?" deal. All he had to do was wait for the A group to board then he could have boarded with his children.
Instead, he was an ass and publicly gave the name of a worker who was doing what company policy was, though she probably should have explained the policy since obviously this guy didn't know, or didn't care, what it was.
So there you have it. Asshole thinks they're someone important and tries to jump the line ends up being shown the door for his stupidity and whininess.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
But are you actually proposing that a carrier of human cargo not be allowed to refuse service?
The idea isn't nearly as absurd as you make it sound. Regulated taxicabs in many cities are not allowed to refuse service - they must pick you up and take you where you want to go.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
> from the beginning of time until about 50 years ago, men were in control of most societies There are two categories of men here: 1. the rulers and 2. the ruled. The first category ruled over the second and women. The second category of men (which were 99.99% of them, anyway) were doing all the worst jobs: wars, hunting, dangerous work. Women were more or less protected. Thus, men had it best and worst at the same time.