Free speech is dead, too. It’s idiotic. He can re-post the tweet, along with the story, and what would have been an anonymous tweet in a sea of bullshit suddenly gets a bright light shone upon it.
NSA and Southwest are no fellow conspirators to deny freedom of speech in the US. Wonder if such oppression happens in, oh say, Russia or China. I shall avoid Southwest whenever possible.
Dad sounds like a bit of a presumptuous jerk - he wasn’t entitled to bump all of his family members up in line based on a single ticket. He could board with his family if he wanted to by standing with them where their tickets entitled them to be, further back in line. Too bad the Southwest rep utterly blew it and became a way bigger jerk, a censorious corporate jerk. How, exactly, would deleting the post make the dad no longer a safety risk, or, for that matter, how did it ever make him one? Regardless, jerk points all around.
It’s not a free speech issue. It’s incredibly stupid and obnoxious and might be worth consulting a lawyer about, but it’s not a free speech issue.
I am absolutely not trying to defend Southwest Airlines here, but his remembered tweet of [quote] Wow, rudest agent in Denver. Kimberly S, gate C39, not happy @SWA[/quote] provided a lot of identifying information.
Enough to uniquely identify one specific person.
So what?
“All of his family members” in this context mean “two children”. These logically fall under the protection of the parent, and considering them as one unit is only logical. The purpose of the bump-up, linked to a high amount of money spent on the airline, is to maintain customer loyalty.
Letting two children with one father in for priority boarding costs the airline nothing, makes said customer happy, does not even make others unhappy as things go smoothly, and all is okay. According to many comments under the original article this is a common practice when the gate person is not an asshole.
I don’t believe the story as presented. All of the southwest staff I’ve encountered are unfailing polite.
But there’s some other things…that just don’t add up.
How did the gate agent read the tweet? Most gate agents are rather busy dealing getting the plane boarded and don’t have time, or availability to pop out for some quick twitter time.
Except it makes other customers unhappy to have some people given special privileges just because they are loud and obnoxious. Family boarding is after first group boarding on SWA. Dad wanted to be treated better than other people, at the expense of other people. Not a huge deal. The Southwest rep was a bigger jerk, way bigger, but the dad wanted stuff he wasn’t entitled to and was pissy because he didn’t’ get it.
Dad earned the privilege by spending enough money with the airline. The airline rewards customer loyalty by providing a mildly elevated status, which usually (and logically) applies to the traveler’s co-traveling family members as well.
Dad was perfectly entitled to the priority boarding. That the rep denied that to his children was the problem. You may like to reread the article.
I don’t know the ages of the children, but you can’t break up families like that. A customer-friendly organization would have let them all board early. But because these airlines are NOT customer-oriented, but profit-oriented, that ethos trickles down to their agents, who like to take giant dumps on people whenever they might feel like it. So screw Southwest and their little Napoleons. They should be NICE to people and not be rude assholes.
They didn’t. Family boarding lets families with small children cut in line as a group, however family boarding is after first group boarding, but that wasn’t good enough for Mr. Privilege
No, he didn’t. That isn’t one of the aspects of his status. You, however, are welcome to prove me wrong by citing the SWA policies stating his customer level entitles family members to board with his group.
I get it. Sure, if that’s what happened, then let cooler heads prevail. The only way for Kimberly S. to have known he was tweeting was if he showed her what he was doing as he did it. If someone did that to ME, I’d be all like, “Fuck you delete that now, you asshole!” That’s not a free speech issue. That’s a ME issue.
Now, wait…here we’re jumping to a conclusion he SHOWED the gate agent the tweet.
In that was case the gate agent might be perfectly within the rules because he pushed a device in the gate agent’s face; as 'HERE IN YOUR FACE ASSHOLE" type thing is a disturbance and needs to be removed.
Also…you pay for priority boarding On SW. It’s for the ticket you paid for—not your family, not you wife, not your lover, not your boss, or anger management specialist.
Of course he could avoided that if he just flew VIRGIN Airlines; who can never do any wrong.
/this is not a paid endowment of Virgin Airlines.
Not only that, but a customer friendly airline would let a family board early regardless of priority aka 1% status. It’s not just good for the family, it’s good for everyone behind them.
All families (with small children) board early on Southwest.
SWA does let families board early, if they have children 4 and under. The Family boarding time is after the first boarding group, but before the majority of passengers. But that wasn’t good enough for this guy’s sense of privilege.
Do families get to preboard?
An adult traveling with a child four years old or younger may board during Family Boarding, which occurs after the “A” group has boarded and before the “B” group begins boarding. However, those Customers holding an “A” boarding pass should still board with the “A” boarding group.
Can groups assigned to different boarding positions board together?
Yes. However, in order to maintain the integrity
of the boarding process, we ask that earlier boarding positions board
with the later positions. For example, if a passenger is assigned
position A16 and wants to board with a passenger assigned position A45,
the passenger holding the A16 boarding pass should board with the A45
passenger.
His kids are older than 4, but he was offered family boarding anyway, after the A group. Under the rules he should have boarded with his kids in their group. He wanted to special privileges, and was pissed he didn’t get them.
SWA was wrong to force deletion of the tweet, but the dad was the first one who was wrong.
I think you nailed this 
How would the gate person even have known about the tweet so quickly? Seems like it would have had to be picked up by whoever monitors twitter for like @Southwest mentions or whatever, who in turn would have had to (and this doesn’t really seem likely or necessary or urgent) immediately phone the Southwest people at that airport and get put through to that particular agent.
Weird.
