'Man kicked off flight because of airport tweet'
We’ve heard of people getting kicked off planes for continuing to tweet after they were told to turn their portable devices off. But someone getting kicked off a plane for something he tweeted back in the airport is a new one.
That happened to an American man, who says he and his family got pulled off a Southwest Airlines flight because of a complaint he posted on Twitter.
On Sunday, Duff Watson was waiting for the flight in Denver when he got into a dispute with a gate agent. As a passenger in Southwest’s A-List program, Watson is entitled to priority boarding, but he claims the gate agent wouldn’t let him board with his 6-year-old and 9-year-old (who presumably are not A-List passengers).
Watson told US station CBS Minnesota that he lost that argument and had to continue waiting at the gate, where he tweeted, “Wow, rudest agent in Denver… not happy.” His tweet also included the gate agent’s first name and last initial.
Soon after they boarded, Watson says he was asked to leave the plane because the gate agent felt threatened because of his tweet. He says he wasn’t allowed to reboard until he deleted it.
Compared to how badly people sometimes freak out at airport gates, Watson says his confrontation was relatively mild.
Watson says the whole incident humiliated him and scared his kids. ”There was no use of profanity, there were no threats made,” he says of his in-gate confrontation. “There was nothing other than, you know, a terse exchange between a customer service agent and a customer.”
Perhaps most surprising thing about the airline’s draconian response to Watson’s tweet is the fact that they responded to it at all.
As far as Watson’s case goes, Southwest Airlines admitted that some kind of incident occurred.
In an email, the airline told Yahoo News: “On Sunday, July 20, a customer was removed for a short time from flight #2347 from Denver to Minneapolis. He later continued on flight #2347 to Minneapolis. The incident is currently under review.”
Watson says he got an apology and $50 vouchers for him and his kids.
They’ll likely go unused, however, because Watson says that he will never fly with Southwest Airlines again.
