EZY "denies boarding to law professor for critical tweets"

[Blind Squirrel]

“I put out a tweet about it and then when I got in the queue, and a member of staff approached me and asked if she could have a quick word," Leiser explained. "She said she understood I’d said something on social media about easyJet and then told me they were not allowing me to board the flight.

“I said you’re kidding me; I asked where that had come from and she told me I should know I’m not allowed to do that. I was stunned. I told her I didn’t really understand what she was telling me and she said: ‘You’re not allowed to talk about easyJet like that and then expect to get on a flight’.”

http://boingboing.net/2013/09/25/easyjet-tells-law-professor-he.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[DaveReidUK]

Except that they didn't.

[farci]

:rolleyes:Except that they didn't.No - but only because the passenger was a savvy person and was able to pull the 'Don't you know who I am' defence.

What it reveals is that easyJet is well enough organised to monitor social media, link it to a particular individual and act as judge and jury.

That's what I find scary

[PAXboy]

I know that some PPRuNers do not like this travel writer but I think this article is very good: Simon Calder: EasyJet may have had a point when they threatened to ban the passenger that tweeted against them - Simon Calder - Travel - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/simon-calder/simon-calder-easyjet-may-have-had-a-point-when-they-threatened-to-ban-the-passenger-that-tweeted-against-them-8842430.html)

While Mr Leiser had no ill intent, lesson one for anyone working in aviation is: a minor problem in the departure lounge can become a major incident at 30,000 feet.Also, let's not forget that for ANY company established and running for 20 years, learning how to handle social media is just that - learning. Remember those folks who made joke bomb threat phone calls?

[BOAC]

Calder is a joke! For a start "It is odd that an airline passenger would expect ground staff to know details of rail connections from a different airport in another country" - oh yes, well done Calder, technically correct, but we are not asking Jock McTavish in Glasgow city centre about the Gatwick Express, but an airline serving a different airport in another country (aka a 'destination') about a connection to the city that destination serves. How difficult would it be for the staff to find out?

Easyjet - that is pathetic.To interpret that as a 'threat' (viz Calder) defies belief. To then wimpishly 'retract' the ban when they realise the passenger (aka the 'customer') is right defies belief. I think a manager or two should be offered 'release' from their posts.

[edi_local]

I would imagine the airline ground staff have far too much to do as it is without having to look up train times for a passenger who, if he has the ability to tweet can surely have looked at that himself. Surely being a law student he was intelligent enough to work that out? I for one would never kick up a fuss if ground staff didn't know about onward connections by ground transport. They are not expected to, it has nothing to do with the service they are there to provide, which is to board flights and get them out safely. Besides if you look up one train for one passenger then the next thing you know you have 100 people queuing up to ask all sorts of inane questions. "Oh, when is the last bus to Horley?" or "Will I make it in time before Waitrose closes, if not will EZY pay for my takeaway dinner tonight? If not I'll starve" etc etc

I would not expect any airline to pay for a ground connection if someone misses a train. EZY are point to point. They get you to the desitnation and that's it. That's where the contract with them ends.

Just how much is an airline expected to for out these days?

[ExXB]

Check out their t&c that every purchaser agrees to before buying:

15.1.1 Without prejudice to any applicable passenger rights pursuant to any international or domestic laws, times shown in timetables, schedules or elsewhere are not guaranteed and form no part of the contract of carriage.

No airline guarantees their schedule, for good reason. Any expectation that airlines' schedule are anything more than their educated guess is folly.

Now, they handled this situation very badly, and I hope they have learned from their experience.

[Agaricus bisporus]

Several aspects of this "report" ring warning bells in my mind...

1) Gate staff are not Easyjet staff. that are handling agents, Servisair - Menzies etc. Thus not under any direct control from EZY as anyone who has ever dealt directly with these people knows. Communications in real time or anything like it between head office and the gate is all but impossible

2) How/ why would anyone expect gate staff to know anything about train times at a destination airport? Is this their job?

3) How could gate staff know that a pax had made a "tweet"? I know nothing of "twitter" but cannot believe that people at work can or would monitor the internet for this sort of thing, or if they did how they could possibly identify an individual in a crowd as a poster (a "twit"?).

4) How could such a remark be seen as a reason to offload someone from a flight anyway? Gate staff routinely let loud, offensive or drunk pax through. It stretches the imagination that the'd do this - unless there was a considerable amount of other activity that the subject has chosen not to reveal.

5) Beefing about a "serving soldier" (is there any other kind?) who has been unimaginative enough to book with insufficient time to make a connection is a matter between the soldier and his divisional officer in a disciplinary meeting for being AWOL, and certainly not Easyjet who warn clearly about minimum connection times. Expecting the airline to make good the fool's mistake is nothing but troublemaking.

I'll bet there is a great deal more to this than meets the eye and if we knew the whole story (ie what hasn't been reported) we'd be saying, "yes. well done, let the bastard walk and serve him right".

10:1 it's just another example of the gutter press making a "scandal" out of selective reporting when the truth is somewhere close to the opposite of the opinions given.

Frankly, I don't believe a word of it and I'd bet the reporter has made a complete arse of himself by kicking up an excessive and probably aggressive fuss expecting ludicrous levels of mollycoddling as some unreasonable pax do when faced with a delay.

Just my reading between the lines...

[PAXboy]

Ag Bis = YES!
I was once leading an event where the newspaper had sent a 'stringer' reporter. Then the paper phone phoned me to get more information.

The stringer and the phone caller then gave information to a 'journalist' who wrote it up. Despite an eye witness and talking to the horse's mouth (moi) he then filled the report with factual errors.

That was the paper of record: The Daily Telegraph so I ignore these things to. Nowadays, newspapers do have enough money to do their job properly and try to catch every 'eyeball' they can.

[Bongodog1964]

This story stretches the imagination to breaking point. We are expected to believe that a member of gate staff working indirectly for Easyjet can look down the queue and pick out visually a person who has made an unhelpful tweet regarding the airline. The chances of them carrying out a positive id at the front of the queue with a photo in front of them is minimal, but this is near impossible.

[Captivep]

Even if this story were true, the "law professor" should know that any company can refuse to serve any customer, at any time, for virtually any reason (some specific discriminatory reasons excepted).

And yes, professor, that includes not liking what you've said about them...

[edi_local]

My thoughts exactly. Why do people think that they can direct abuse towards a company in public on social media and that nothing can come of it? If he's so unhappy about EZY then he should look elsewhere for his travel plans. I would be glad if more airlines started to bite back and did refuse people travel for libelous or slanderous messages on social media, especially when directed at staff.

[ExXB]

Yes, but in Europe Regulation 261 would require them to pay denied boarding compensation as he had a valid reservation for the flight.

The airline could, if it wanted, refuse to accept a booking from any passenger, but once they have they have to honour it, unless they have good reason (safety, security) for not boarding him/her. Not liking him/her or what s/he says isn't good enough.

[foxmoth]

There are a number of things that are irrelevant here, the guy had a ticket so had a contract for Easy to carry him, what he tweeted was irrelevant as long as it was TRUE and non threatening,that Easy disliked it is irrelevant as is the fact that it was on social Media.
These are the facts, nothing to do with the right and wrong of tweeting it, nor if Easy were right or wrong not to give further assistance to the soldier (most airports now have some sort of internet access you can buy and he would most certainly have had more time than busy airport staff to use it) but I certainly do not see there being any valid LEGAL reasons to deny boarding!

[Wannabe Flyer]

DO the NSA work for EZY? Such speed and identification..... gate agents in the wrong profession :p

[Jwscud]

I read an article in The Times that suggested he had in fact been aggressive with gate staff, waved his phone about and said he was tweeting everything they were saying to him.

I can entirely understand the gate staff's point of view.