EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
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Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#2I can imagine a company not dealing with particular individuals - say, due to an ongoing litigation or some personal conflict, like a restaurant owner telling a rude/disruptive customer "we won't serve you ever again". And that probably would be both legal and morally okay.
However, for airlines that should (must?) be limited to not selling tickets - if they have sold a ticket, then they must fulfill their end of the bargain.
Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#3Somehow I doubt the story. Boarding personal has better things to do than to check twitter against the list of people baording.
Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#4Somehow I doubt the story. Boarding personal has better things to do than to check twitter against the list of people baording.
Seeing as he mentioned @easyjet in the tweet, I'm guessing someone manning the social media saw it and a power-mad manager decided to call thru to the boarding staff.
Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#5Somehow I doubt the story. Boarding personal has better things to do than to check twitter against the list of people baording.
Probably he got a call from HQ where some "big data" geek is inordinately proud of his 10-line script for mashing up Twitter with the passenger manifest.
Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#6I think this will hurt easyJet. If it had been Ryanair people would just shrug and say, what did you expect? But easyJet's schtick has always been cheap and cheerful, better value for money than stuffy old BA but good service where it matters. And anecdotally having flown often with all three, neither Ryanair nor BA's typical passengers really care about social media, the former because they just want cheap (or there is no other airline doing that route), and the latter because they get their brand messages via other channels. But easyJet's do.
Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#7I can imagine a company not dealing with particular individuals - say, due to an ongoing litigation or some personal conflict, like a restaurant owner telling a rude/disruptive customer "we won't serve you ever again". And that probably would be both legal and morally okay. However, for airlines that should (must?) be limited to not selling tickets - if they have sold a ticket, then they must fulfill their end of the…
I'd go one step further, as air lines are providers of critical infrastructure, they should have damn good reasons to ban me from buying tickets at their airline.
Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#8"It wasn’t until I asked him if he’d heard of free speech that the tone changed. He asked me if I was a lawyer and I told him I taught law at Strathclyde.
"He quickly had a word with his staff and then told me I’d better get on the flight because they were waiting for me."
What? So if you are a lawyer things change?
I would have sued the company and the manager personally (not sure this is allowed, still).
Edit: apparently the Social Media team was active during the incident and agreeing with the passenger, not with the manager.
Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#9"It wasn’t until I asked him if he’d heard of free speech that the tone changed. He asked me if I was a lawyer and I told him I taught law at Strathclyde. "He quickly had a word with his staff and then told me I’d better get on the flight because they were waiting for me." What? So if you are a lawyer things change? I would have sued the company and the manager personally (not sure this is allowed, still). Edit: appa…
Free speech applies to government restrictions on speech. It hasn't much to do with rules and terms of private service. For example, you can't use claims of "free speech" to get HN to reverse a ban on you should that happen.
I don't agree with what a couple of easyJet employees seem to have done without easyJet's approval, but right of a private company or person to refuse service would seem to trump this? It's not like they are refusing service because of a protected category (like discrimination based on race, etc).
Although this isn't even happening in America, so I don't even understand what laws apply. Freedom of speech as Americans understand it do not really even apply in some European countries to the extent it does in the US because of ridiculous slander laws and the ability to be thrown in jail for telling lies (about the Holocaust for example, which is a pretty awful thing to lie about).
Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet
#10Freedom of speech is about stopping the government from interfering with your speech. AFAIK there's no law which prohibits a company doing business with you because you made a negative comment about them.
In this case it's slightly more grey because the passenger had already bought a ticket and it's not clear if the terms of the sale would allow easyjet to revoke the sale on that basis.