A recent passenger says he was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for complaining about a “rude” employee on social media.
Duff Watson of Minneapolis told CBS Minneapolis WCCO he had priority status to board a flight from Denver to his home city on Sunday, but was unable to do so when a gate agent refused to let his six-year-old and nine-year-old board with him.
Watson tweeted “Something to the effect of, ‘Wow, rudest agent in Denver. Kimberly S, gate C39, not happy @SWA.'”
After the three took their seats, the agent forced the family to deplane, explaining that she felt threatened by the tweet, and that the family would be unable to board the flight until Watson deleted it.
“She said ‘I’m going to call the cops,'” Watson’s daughter said. “I, like, thought something bad was going to happen, like my dad being in jail.”
Unreal exp. Awaiting resp. from airline. Asked for name of rude gate agent. We board. I tweet. Kids & I pulled off unless I delete. AYKM?
— Duff Watson (@DuffWatson) July 21, 2014
Watson eventually complied, and the family was allowed to re-board the plane to Minneapolis.
“I was left, you know, very upset, very embarrassed, very humiliated,” Watson said. “There was no use of profanity, there were no threats made. There was nothing other than, you know, a terse exchange between a customer service agent and a customer.”
The airline has since apologized for the incident and offered Watson and his family each a $50 travel voucher, which only served to further outrage the father of two. Watson said he’ll never fly Southwest again.
The follow-up from the incident on Sun. with @SouthwestAir is now a double insult. Choose a kinder airline. #neveragain Family deplaned?
— Duff Watson (@DuffWatson) July 22, 2014