The primary passenger had priority early seating. He had kids with him that, if they let them board early with him, would’ve expedited everyone’s boarding. I don’t see the issue.
I hate priority boarding by socioeconomic class as much as the next person, but in this case I kinda have to agree with the dad; Kimberly S. from Denver is a vindictive asshole who should be fired for claiming “because FUD terror” without cause and delaying the entire flight.
Being very close to BWI, a Southwest hub airport, I fly SWA a lot. A lot. Usually as Business Select. I have many hundreds of thousands of rewards points as a result. My wife, as a counterexample, does not. When we travel together, I either board in my early group and save a center seat in the same row, or I wait and board later with her.
When you travel with someone who does not hold the same rewards privileges, you have a choice. You board separately, or you board together with the person(s) in the later group. Period. Priviliges do not extend to other passengers who happen to be travelling on the same itinerary. This is explicit in the rewards program terms.
Occassionally, you can bend the rules and get a single companion through the priority security line with you. But don’t try to cut the whole family in front of all those people who either paid a premium for priority boarding, paid the upcharge for early checkin and a better boarding position, or took the time to make sure they secured their boarding pass online. That’s just boorish.
Children are different than your wife. You wouldn’t expect children to wait in the boarding area without their parents. And separating children from their parents only increases, not decreases, complications in boarding. Totally different situation. If you’d ever boarded with a child you’d know there is a big difference.
The specificity of the boorish tweet is what facilitated his removal. Dad’s a jerk, but a specific jerk.
His first mistake was using his real name and photo on his Twitter profile.
Or the story presented is rather one side…and “Dad” was rather loud about his privilege and ability to post his displeasure online to whatever ‘followers’ he has.
I think it’s perfectly rational for the gate agent to feel disturbed when some loud person posts their name, location, and job. You have no idea what the tweeter feed has following them. Could be pie in face…could be much worse.
You don’t know what crazy is out there. Heck, If someone threaten Cory in person and then posted Cory’s location to whatever nutterverse followers could be out there…you bet there would be post pulling.
Best article title for this story so far: “Tweet Delete Gets Seat”
Since people asked these questions, I thought I’d pop in the answers:
The kids were 6 and 9.
He was verbally not getting along with the female attendant who was mildly frightened of his behavior. Then . . .“In leaving I said, you know, ‘Real nice way to treat an A-list. I’ll be sure to tweet about it,’” he said. So she said, You’re not boarding unless you delete that tweet.” because she apparently felt threatened by the whole thing.
Now in interviews, he keeps altering his story about what it is he tweeted - her name and location. He’s still willing to describe the exchange as “terse”. Oh, and now he’s saying that his family had to deplane - when they never got on.
Unfortunately, Duff Watson’s Twitter page is protected. So, I wasn’t able to find out what he normally does tweet when not complaining about service.
He possibly did write this review on foursquare of Caribou Coffee in Minneapolis. 
Duff W.
I think you can tell a lot about people on how they treat their delivery drivers. The women at this store are straight rude.
Duff Watson · February 27
Most other people seem to like them. (One guy did call the manager a “trolley”.)
Virgin can do no wrong, huh? REALLY?? You sure about that?
Last time I flew them, boarding was divided into groups (like it always is); and I got group C. The flight attendant announced group A by calling out “Group A… Group A… Group A, as in ‘awesome’!.. Group A…”
He then proceeded to call out group B “Group B… Group B… Group B, as in ‘beautiful’!.. Group B…”
But then! He called out “Group C… Group C… Group C, as in… ‘cat’… Group C…”
WAIT WAIT WHAT? Cat!? A get awesome, B gets beautiful, but C gets cat??? Do you know how offended I still am?? lol
you know in this modern age being in the cat group could be seen a sign of superiority
Key & Peele already did a sketch that reminded me of this:
While it sounds like the tweeter was being a jerk, Southwest escalated in an inappropriate fashion how they dealt with the situation. Unless he was threatening the attendants, they should have let him fly and cleaned up the mess later. The cynical part of me is happy about the idea of not sharing flights with the quick-tempered.
That was, in fact, the intention.
Cranky, Carnivorous, Catty…Hmmm its not working is it.
His name is “Duff”. Doesn’t that explain it all?
Okay, maybe that’s harsh, prejudiced, and entirely unfair. But you can’t go around with a name that’s indicative of an 80s private school over-privileged white gated-community lifestyle without being treated like such in my mind. “Duff” definitely should have been the name of one of those white-jacketed slick-haired fast car driving douchebags in a John Hughes film. Or, perhaps more accurately, the name of one of those villain’s underlings.
Wait your turn next time, Duff. Geez… it would have been an extra 10 minutes before you boarded?
I’m having an extremely difficult time feeling the slightest bit sympathetic to either party. A mundane dispute occurred. Some indignation on both parties resulted. A tweet was issued into the world, scalding the aether with its irrefutable gall. The skies were sundered by the resulting conflagration. Time stopped. A flabbergasted man was forced to encounter the intolerable circumstance in which his actions had a demonstrable consequence. Shock! Calamity! Civilization trembled at its foundations! An entire generation of internet spectators reeled, their prejudices and ideologies shaken – perhaps irrecoverably! Pundits seethed while the media enterprise re-evaluated its purpose in the world! Climate change, war, and societal collapse were, for the moment, utterly forgotten. What power, a tweet!
Aren’t cats both awesome and beautiful?
FYI: Southwest’s “family boarding” doesn’t apply here, and that’s only for families with children ages 4 and under. Southwest’s official policy is to suggest the entire family board together at the highest (worst) boarding position.
He and the kids boarded, then were pulled off, made to delete the tweet before being re-boarded and allowed to fly.
You were holding out for “concupiscent?”
But doesn’t that child-dependent fairness assume that no one else on the plane had children?
Seems to me that Southwest has a boarding process that’s far too complicated, because after reading this thread (including quotes from SWA’s web page) I’m still not clear on whether the guy was entitled to board first or not.
