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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Doubtful. More plausible is that the guy bragged to the flight attendand that he sent the tweet.
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