It appears that passengers now tweet at their own peril on airlines. We have previously seen how tweets have gotten passengers pulled from planes, including tweets that simply joked or criticized an airline. Now in Minneapolis, Duff Watson says that he was pulled from a Southwest Airlines flight because he tweeted his dissatisfaction with a gate agent. He says that the agent told him that his tweet calling her rude left her feeling threatened and that he could only fly with his children if he deleted the tweet. It appears a new twist on the company’s slogan, If it matters to you, it matters to us.
Watson says that the conflict arose when the agent refused to let him board early with his two children. He is on the priority boarding list but the agent said that his 6-year-old and 9-year-old kids were not. He objected to the notion of leaving his kids to board separately. He then said “Real nice way to treat an A-list. I’ll be sure to tweet about it.” And he did. When he boarded the flight, he tweeted “Wow, rudest agent in Denver. Kimberly S, gate C39, not happy @SWA.”
That is when he says that the three were approached on plane in their seats and told, according to the family, that the tweet was “threatening” and that they would have to leave the plane. His daughter said that the agent said that she was going to call the police. Watson said that he was forced to delete the tweet as his kids began to cry.
Southwest later apologized and offered the family $50 vouchers. The airline says that it is investigating the incident. Here is my question. Such actions usually require notice to the pilots or a supervisor. Why didn’t anyone stop the agent and say “Wow, you cannot force people to delete criticisms of us Kimberly.” The tweet itself contained no profanity or threat or even Kimberly’s last name. For those critical of the changes in air travel, it is another chilling glimpse into the increased sense of power of flight crew over passengers, particularly in removing passengers from flights.
Source: CBS
Funny that the guy could not handle the results of his RUDE tweet. He had it coming, in my view. By his tweet, he lowered himself to the lowest common denominator, but then cried “Uncle” when he got some feedback. LOL
yeah, like I’m shaking my head too….
HEY DAVE did you miss the part where the gentleman said BEFORE THAT DAY AND KIMBERLY HE NEVER HAD A PROBLEM BEFORE? if you did maybe you should go back and do some reading. as for you knowing kimberly hahaha that can be taken many different ways since you are apparently the only one of her co workers to take up for her!!! maybe how well you know her and why you are taking up for her should also be investigated .
Mespo i said the same thing when i first read this story on another site. i wondered how the agent even knew what account on which site to look for said tweet. for her to know it was there?
she obviously had plenty of time to search thru all social media sites until she found this mans account and read the tweet that in itself to me says “YOU’RE FIRED” and how do you demand that someone deletes a tweet off of their account concerning you? if she was so worried about negative tweets then maybe she should have thought of that before BEING RUDE , NASTY AND SUBJECTIVE . i think this man should hire himself a lawyer and sue southwest with airplanes being shot down left and right for no reason (other then to get ww3 started based on lies and false flag attacks) this should have been the least of southwests worries
but hey kimberly NOW EVERYONE KNOWS ABOUT YOUR NASTY ATTITUDE HAHAHAHA ISNT KARMA THE GREATEST!!!!
Southwest Airlines Kimberly S. is a petty cretinous authoritarian tyrant in training.
I work for the airline, and I know the agent personally! Let me say that she is not fired, and had every right to uphold our boarding process. An A-List member should be aware of how we board our planes! It is the way we are trained. The tweet was asked to be removed because it had Kim’s full name, which Mr. Watson got from her DIA Airport Badge, not her name tag. It was not given willingly. She felt she was being punished for just doing her job, and she pulled the family into the jet bridge to discuss the matter with him. He demanded to speak to a Supervisor and one was provided. After he calmed down we let him back on the plane. He removed the tweet willingly and no cops were ever called. Folks, we deal with dumbasses everyday! Just follow the boarding process the way we instruct you, and you won’t have any issues. If you don’t like how we board then please fly someone else. We’ve been doing our job this way for over 43 years! It’s been worked before Twitter was even a thing!
“Feeling threatened” is a ridiculous modern buzzword used to try to silence views with which people disagree.