Not My Travel method in the future - pax should vote with their ticket money
Have you considered that some members of the travelling public may prefer the crew to follow the SOPs?
I have no reason to disbelieve Mr Mason when he says the flight was not endangered, but if SOPs are not followed in one area, many people will ask what guarantee is there that they will be followed in another area?
This is not the way I think, but many will and I wouldn't expect to see too much public retribution against MyTravel - anyway, most people will buy the best deal.
The 'security keeps us safe' argument appears quite frequently in SLF, where I normally live and although several of us try to debunk it, we don't often succeed.
The best thing to do is to follow company SOPs on this to the letter and I regret that, as I was privileged to spend some hours in the flight deck before 9/11 and it was a real privilege.