Friday, September 27, 2013



UK: Must not complain about a late flight

A PASSENGER claims he was told he couldn’t board his flight after posting a Tweet critical of the airline.

Mark Leiser, a law lecturer at Strathclyde University, was waiting for his delayed easyJet flight from Glasgow to London, and became concerned he would miss his connecting train.

The flight was over an hour late, so he approached a staff member about his concerns but was allegedly told it wasn’t their problem.

The employee then mentioned that there was someone in the military who may also miss their connection.

It was at this point that Leiser decided to take to Twitter to complain about the delay.

He told The Independent: “She implied that if easyJet wasn’t able to do anything for him if he might miss his boat, then they definitely weren’t going to do anything for me.  “It was at that point I sent the Tweet. I wasn’t concerned for me but if this guy might miss his boat which was potentially disembarking into a war zone because he had relied on easyJet then I thought put pressure on them to do something about it.”

But later on, when in the boarding queue, the same staff member allegedly approached him and pulled him out of the line.

“She pulled me out the line which was embarrassing,” Mr Leiser said. “Then she told me they were not going to let me get on this flight because of the Tweet I sent. The manager then came over and told the woman to check if I had any bags on board.

“They asked to see the Tweet and said to save it and that I was not to delete it.”

He claims the manager then said he should know better than to send Tweets like that and think he can still board the flight.

Ironically, Leiser had been working on a lecture he was due to give next week on free speech and social media while he waited at the airport. So he responded that it was free speech and that he was a lawyer, flashing his ID from university.

“At this point everyone else had boarded and I said to him that he needed to make up his mind whether I would be allowed on the flight or not,” he said.

“He then asked the woman if I did have any bags on board but decided to let me on the flight. He only really let me on the flight because I flashed my law lecturing ID and I don’t like doing that.”

Source


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

How did they know what he tweeted? Apparently, Britainistan is getting worse than the US.

Anonymous said...

I'm a bit torn by this.
I guess part of me thinks that EasyJet is a private business and they can choose who they want to carry.
Another part of me is screaming that this is pure retaliation and stupid.

Dman said...

"because I flashed my law lecturing ID"????

Okay, I get the "I'm a lawyer and I'll sue you," thing. But him pulling out his "law lecturing I.D." like some sort of law enforcement badge just made me giggle. The icing on the cake was, "...and I don't like doing that." Which, to me, says he frequently does that!

That's okay, I get it. Just the other day I flashed my gym membership card to some jerk to show him he was dealing with a real Jedi Ninja SEAL." :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, like any kinda card or badge can't be faked by modern tech, no matter how elaborate (and who in the public puts them under any kind of forensic exam - or is even able to?).

Uno Hu said...

I think the comments above sort of miss the point, especially with the forced snark.

What happened was an airline employee who had "the power" to inconvenience an individual who had the temerity to send an unfavorable tweet realized that instead of some ordinary mundane who could be cowed, he was about to piss off a lawyer, who could turn around and cram his "display of power" way up where the sun don't [sic] shine.

The shame is that in so many situations now, unless you are a lawyer you will get taken advantage of, as this flyer was about to.