Dad Calls Out SW Airlines Customer Service Rep, Tweets, and Gets Pulled Off Flight

[jsearles22]

The part everyone ITT is missing is that the guy got back on the plane and went about his merry way after deleting the tweet. He wasnt detained, nothing. He didnt miss his flight. So what is the dollar sum he should expect for this harrassment? And again everyone is assuming the guy was a peach which i find very hard to believe.



And Druff I think your SW bias is showing up hard here. All airlines do have problems, just like any other business in which you have to service people as your primary revenue.
http://www.shortlist.com/shortlists/...culous-reasons 1/8 is SW so that kind of flies in the face of your "stats" that says only SW has problems with this type of issue

Doesn't matter if he was a peach or not, the agent has zero authority to pull him and his kids off the plane without a legit reason, zero authority to force him to delete tweets or threaten him, and for SW's sake should not act like a fucking cunt. SW should have to pay I'd say mid-5 figures as punishment.

Yeah, you're right, he should definitely expect 50 large for getting hassled for a few minutes and getting back on his regular flight and not being inconvenienced at all after that.

[Dan Druff]

Doesn't matter if he was a peach or not, the agent has zero authority to pull him and his kids off the plane without a legit reason, zero authority to force him to delete tweets or threaten him, and for SW's sake should not act like a fucking cunt. SW should have to pay I'd say mid-5 figures as punishment.

Yeah, you're right, he should definitely expect 50 large for getting hassled for a few minutes and getting back on his regular flight and not being inconvenienced at all after that.

I don't know about the proper compensation, but to give the guy $150 is LOL. The compensation here would be punitive, and not so much for his inconvenience.

This was pretty bad. It was interfering with his right to free speech and using his travel on their airline as an extortion tactic to force him to remove what they didn't like to see.

Again, an airline has a federal requirement to allow him to travel after selling him a ticket. They can't just pull this "we have a right to refuse service to anyone for any reason" crap that the owner of a local pizzeria can.

There needs to be punitive damages against a company which does such a thing.

It is also fully legal to criticize an employee by name via an internet post, provided your statement about them is true. (If your statement isn't true, it's still not a crime, but rather a civil violation which can result in monetary damages, but no jail time.)

There is no doubt that his statement was true. If he wanted to post Kimberly S's last name, that would have been within his rights, as well.

Southwest would have the right to refuse to sell him tickets in the future, but they had to honor his travel here because they had already ticketed him, and he had not violated any laws, nor was he threatening the safety of the plane or passengers in any way.

[jsearles22]

Yeah, you're right, he should definitely expect 50 large for getting hassled for a few minutes and getting back on his regular flight and not being inconvenienced at all after that.

I don't know about the proper compensation, but to give the guy $150 is LOL. The compensation here would be punitive, and not so much for his inconvenience.

This was pretty bad. It was interfering with his right to free speech and using his travel on their airline as an extortion tactic to force him to remove what they didn't like to see.

Again, an airline has a federal requirement to allow him to travel after selling him a ticket. They can't just pull this "we have a right to refuse service to anyone for any reason" crap that the owner of a local pizzeria can.

There needs to be punitive damages against a company which does such a thing.

It is also fully legal to criticize an employee by name via an internet post, provided your statement about them is true. (If your statement isn't true, it's still not a crime, but rather a civil violation which can result in monetary damages, but no jail time.)

There is no doubt that his statement was true. If he wanted to post Kimberly S's last name, that would have been within his rights, as well.

Southwest would have the right to refuse to sell him tickets in the future, but they had to honor his travel here because they had already ticketed him, and he had not violated any laws, nor was he threatening the safety of the plane or passengers in any way.

FFS, anyone who thinks this guy deserves truck loads of money needs to wipe the sand out of their vagina. Freedom of speech violated? Mid five figures? The guy was made to delete a tweet (which he easily could have retweeted later FWIW), and was allowed on the regularly scheduled flight. Come the fuck on, there is way more important shit than that happens every single day in every large city. It was at the very least a very slight irritation.

You guys are making it sound like this rogue employee was trained to do this. Like there was a company wide initiative to suppress free speech. Or to delay his travel, which didnt even happen. He got on the fucking plane. I seriously cant believe we are talking about suppression of free speech and the airlines federal requirement to provide travel. They provided travel. They simply didnt want to continue the argument on the plane so they took him off the plane for a few minutes and then RIGHT BACK ON THE PLANE. Come on.

[Dan Druff]

I don't know about the proper compensation, but to give the guy $150 is LOL. The compensation here would be punitive, and not so much for his inconvenience.

This was pretty bad. It was interfering with his right to free speech and using his travel on their airline as an extortion tactic to force him to remove what they didn't like to see.

Again, an airline has a federal requirement to allow him to travel after selling him a ticket. They can't just pull this "we have a right to refuse service to anyone for any reason" crap that the owner of a local pizzeria can.

There needs to be punitive damages against a company which does such a thing.

It is also fully legal to criticize an employee by name via an internet post, provided your statement about them is true. (If your statement isn't true, it's still not a crime, but rather a civil violation which can result in monetary damages, but no jail time.)

There is no doubt that his statement was true. If he wanted to post Kimberly S's last name, that would have been within his rights, as well.

Southwest would have the right to refuse to sell him tickets in the future, but they had to honor his travel here because they had already ticketed him, and he had not violated any laws, nor was he threatening the safety of the plane or passengers in any way.

FFS, anyone who thinks this guy deserves truck loads of money needs to wipe the sand out of their vagina. Freedom of speech violated? Mid five figures? The guy was made to delete a tweet (which he easily could have retweeted later FWIW), and was allowed on the regularly scheduled flight. Come the fuck on, there is way more important shit than that happens every single day in every large city. It was at the very least a very slight irritation.

You guys are making it sound like this rogue employee was trained to do this. Like there was a company wide initiative to suppress free speech. Or to delay his travel, which didnt even happen. He got on the fucking plane. I seriously cant believe we are talking about suppression of free speech and the airlines federal requirement to provide travel. They provided travel. They simply didnt want to continue the argument on the plane so they took him off the plane for a few minutes and then RIGHT BACK ON THE PLANE. Come on.

Airlines should never use the threat of highly inconveniencing a customer to force him to remove speech on the internet they don't like.

Even if that's not the official policy of the airline, the employee was acting as a representative of them, and nobody above her head stopped it.

They need to pay for violations like this, not just give the customer $150 and send them on their way.

[jsearles22]

FFS, anyone who thinks this guy deserves truck loads of money needs to wipe the sand out of their vagina. Freedom of speech violated? Mid five figures? The guy was made to delete a tweet (which he easily could have retweeted later FWIW), and was allowed on the regularly scheduled flight. Come the fuck on, there is way more important shit than that happens every single day in every large city. It was at the very least a very slight irritation.

You guys are making it sound like this rogue employee was trained to do this. Like there was a company wide initiative to suppress free speech. Or to delay his travel, which didnt even happen. He got on the fucking plane. I seriously cant believe we are talking about suppression of free speech and the airlines federal requirement to provide travel. They provided travel. They simply didnt want to continue the argument on the plane so they took him off the plane for a few minutes and then RIGHT BACK ON THE PLANE. Come on.

Airlines should never use the threat of highly inconveniencing a customer to force him to remove speech on the internet they don't like.

Even if that's not the official policy of the airline, the employee was acting as a representative of them, and nobody above her head stopped it.

They need to pay for violations like this, not just give the customer $150 and send them on their way.

How much? Thats what im trying to gain the pulse of here? What do people truly feel this 10 minute conversation and forced tweet deletion (that could EASILY be retweeted, he wasnt forced to delete his twitter account) should cost SW? Im in the $200 low end $500 high end camp.

[Indyrick]

I have had many shitty flights with SW. I personally like frontier if I am flying domestic. I am by no means a high mileage flyer but every customer expects reasonable service. SW just gets more publicity because they are more visiable being such a large airline. NO news is good news and bad news stays with you forever.

[Dan Druff]

Even my first experience with Southwest sucked.

In 1993, I flew them for the first time. It was a short flight from Sacramento to LA.

You didn't have assigned seats, but instead got boarding passes with numbers on them, and the lower numbers boarded first and got their pick of seats.

My number was low and I was happy, and I got there early so I could get that.

Then I was standing there waiting to board and saw that my pass was purple and everyone else's was blue.

I brought this to the employee in charge and was told that I was erroneously given the wrong flight's boarding pass. They gave me the right color with a high number!

I asked, "Wait, I should have a low number, it's not my fault you gave me the wrong pass", and they refused. They steadfastly told me that it was too bad, and that it "wouldn't be fair to everyone else" if they let met get a low number at this point. What?!

I actually backed down because it was only an hour flight, but then got a terrible seat (couldn't recline), and faced directly to other seats in this weird configuration near the back of the plane, and regretted not making a bigger deal about it.

Fuck them.

[zealanddonk]

Doesn't matter if he was a peach or not, the agent has zero authority to pull him and his kids off the plane without a legit reason, zero authority to force him to delete tweets or threaten him, and for SW's sake should not act like a fucking cunt. SW should have to pay I'd say mid-5 figures as punishment.

Yeah, you're right, he should definitely expect 50 large for getting hassled for a few minutes and getting back on his regular flight and not being inconvenienced at all after that.

If nothing is done against SWA, the next time a staff member sees a tweet they don't like, they'll get TSA to take the passenger out back and give them the quick frisk, and you know how fucking useless TSA is.

[4Dragons]

Yeah, you're right, he should definitely expect 50 large for getting hassled for a few minutes and getting back on his regular flight and not being inconvenienced at all after that.

If nothing is done against SWA, the next time a staff member sees a tweet they don't like, they'll get TSA to take the passenger out back and give them the quick frisk, and you know how fucking useless TSA is.

C'mon, this dork tweeted while on the plane, before it even left the gate. I put this on him because he could have waited until he was off the plane and across the country before he did it. WTF are you on your phone for pre take off anyway? Guy didn't deserve what happened but in the same breath he's a moronic self entitled douche.

[Jayjami]

Being an A-list flyer on Southwest is akin to being an preferred shopper at Wal-Mart. The perks are about the same.

[Walter Sobchak]

I don't know about the proper compensation, but to give the guy $150 is LOL. The compensation here would be punitive, and not so much for his inconvenience.

This was pretty bad. It was interfering with his right to free speech and using his travel on their airline as an extortion tactic to force him to remove what they didn't like to see.

Again, an airline has a federal requirement to allow him to travel after selling him a ticket. They can't just pull this "we have a right to refuse service to anyone for any reason" crap that the owner of a local pizzeria can.

There needs to be punitive damages against a company which does such a thing.

It is also fully legal to criticize an employee by name via an internet post, provided your statement about them is true. (If your statement isn't true, it's still not a crime, but rather a civil violation which can result in monetary damages, but no jail time.)

There is no doubt that his statement was true. If he wanted to post Kimberly S's last name, that would have been within his rights, as well.

Southwest would have the right to refuse to sell him tickets in the future, but they had to honor his travel here because they had already ticketed him, and he had not violated any laws, nor was he threatening the safety of the plane or passengers in any way.

FFS, anyone who thinks this guy deserves truck loads of money needs to wipe the sand out of their vagina. Freedom of speech violated? Mid five figures? The guy was made to delete a tweet (which he easily could have retweeted later FWIW), and was allowed on the regularly scheduled flight. Come the fuck on, there is way more important shit than that happens every single day in every large city. It was at the very least a very slight irritation.

You guys are making it sound like this rogue employee was trained to do this. Like there was a company wide initiative to suppress free speech. Or to delay his travel, which didnt even happen. He got on the fucking plane. I seriously cant believe we are talking about suppression of free speech and the airlines federal requirement to provide travel. They provided travel. They simply didnt want to continue the argument on the plane so they took him off the plane for a few minutes and then RIGHT BACK ON THE PLANE. Come on.

Horrible, but figures since you laugh at screwing people over that this would be no big deal to you.

Druff, re-ban this scamming douche, he is intolerable. I'd forgotten what a dick he is.