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EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

thedrum.com

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Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#51

Post by ra »

neya wrote: post #36

It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what. - A quote by Stephen Fry Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an a…

That's not really capturing the nuance of the situation.

It's not like he said "Easyjet sucks", he said, referring to a nearby passenger, "Flight delayed 90min. Soldier going to miss last connection & @easyjet refusing to help pay for him to get to Portsmouth. Get right into em!"

That's just commentary. He'd already bought the ticket; he was already at the airport; he wasn't being hypocritical.

He's a lecturer in Internet law and has a couple of thousand followers on twitter. This is more like the earlier story about the hearing impaired Delta passenger who happened to be a social media consultant than it is Steven Fry's comments.

In fact, you've taken Steven Fry's comments completely out of context too. Leiser wasn't tweeting because he was offended.

In fact, when Fry made this comment in 2006 it was in the context of religion and blasphemy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnSByCb8lqY

Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#52

Post by switch007 »

nodata wrote: post #19
gaius wrote: post #6

I 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…

Except easyjet really isn't that cheap any more.

Compared to when? What about comparing their current prices to before low cost flights were popular.

I'm flying to Western Europe, with baggage and an extra legroom seat for £120 return. I think that's superb value for money.

Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#54

Post by [deleted] »

neya wrote: post #36

It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what. - A quote by Stephen Fry Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an a…

[deleted]

Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#55

Post by [deleted] »

netrus wrote: post #7
PeterisP wrote: post #2

I 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.

[deleted]

Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#56

Post by colechristensen »

This is infantile, I don't want to see this type of content here.

A low level company manager making a stupid decision, an entitled journalist trying to drum up controversy using his position and the squawks of Twitter responding have no place in 'hacker news' or 'news' in general.

Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#57

Post by ra »

ig1 wrote: post #10

Freedom 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.

IMHO This isn't about the law so much as it is about catastrophic social media screw ups. It's the second Internet / social media storm about an airline in 24 hours.

Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#58

Post by olalonde »

ig1 wrote: post #10

Freedom 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.

Because it is legal doesn't make it right (I have no idea whether it is or not). Hopefully a lot of people will read that news and decide to boycott them.

Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#59

Post by carlob »

neya wrote: post #36

It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what. - A quote by Stephen Fry Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an a…

If you are cleared for check in and then the airline denies boarding, you have a set of rights and the airline is required to inform you of those rights. [0]

There is very heavy regulation regarding flight, and thankfully so.

Recently my girlfriend was in a similar situation (minus the tweets) with easyjet, and she's currently pursuing compensation through the EU [1].

If anything like this happens to you: know your rights!

[0] http://www.airpassengerrights.eu/en/denied-boarding.html

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/transport/themes/passengers/air/doc/comp...

Re: EasyJet refuses to let columnist on board for sending critical tweet

#60

Post by rbehrends »

neya wrote: post #36

It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what. - A quote by Stephen Fry Free speech is one thing, but abuse of free speech is another. When you perform an a…

Well, whether Mc Donald's should let you buy a burger from them AFTER you just said that is solely their choice.

That's a different situation. Once you've bought a ticket, then you have already entered into a contract with the airline, and have certain contractual and statutory [1] rights. In the EU at least, being denied boarding means at the minimum a refund, cash compensation for the inconvenience, and assistance with/while procuring alternate transportation.

Furthermore, EasyJet's terms and conditions [2] only allow them to deny you boarding where this is "justified by circumstances beyond our control or for reasons of safety". While these criteria can be stretched a bit, it is very doubtful that either would cover being criticized on Twitter.

And being a hypocrite and being offended doesn't give you any special rights either.

Aside from the fact that you may not be a hypocrite (I've flown with more than one airline I wasn't particular fond of because I didn't have a choice), even being a hypocrite doesn't mean that you lose your statutory rights.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_261/2004

[2] http://www.easyjet.com/terms-and-conditions

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