Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Never Again--On Delta Airlines

I'm sure lots of people have seen the video of the Trump supporter being a disruptive asshole on a Delta flight. Now Delta Airlines apologizes for not ejecting him from the plane, is refunding every passenger's air fare, and is permanently barring the guy from flying on their airline.

I don't condone the guys behavior but that's kind of harsh. He was being a disruptive asshole. But so are extreme sports fans and other people with strong feelings for one thing or another that they feel they need to make public. You get one of those people on a flight every once in a while. You see people like that in public all the time. Usually all it takes is a crew member to tell the person or persons to stop or they'll be removed from the aircraft and then remove them if they don't comply. End of story and everybody gets on with their life.

The disruptive asshole in this case was removed from the aircraft and given a talking to. He was allowed back on the plane and he stopped being a disruptive asshole.

Then the video of the guy being a disruptive asshole went viral and everybody is outraged. This guy is being a disruptive asshole! Yes, he was. And he stopped being a disruptive asshole after the crew pulled him from the aircraft and talked to him. But that's not good enough so the airline overreacts and makes sure the guy is not going to be recorded being a disruptive asshole on one of their planes again.

Everybody's blood lust is satisfied now.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was his behavior any worse than Azealia Banks'?

Did Delta ban Banks? If not, why not?

CEO Bastian needs to explain how and when Delta standards and punishments are applied, particularly since he personally enforces them.

Come fly me said...

I'm skeptical common carrier Delta can defend a lifetime expulsion in court. This man will get the ban thrown out and his lawyers will get the fees. Probably will just be settled out of court.

Delta voided a safety objection to the man's presence by allowing him back on the flight, and it only hurts their case that he changed his behavior upon Delta's request.

Delta will have a hard time explaining why they banned this man only after video of his political rant surfaced. The Delta CEO's explanation is actually counter-productive to defending Delta's case.

There are also potential discrimination issues, since Delta has acted differently in some well-known cases, including the recent case of Azealia Bank's alleged assault of a passenger (off camera) and abusive language and tussle with a crew member (on-camera).

Delta is not in a good legal position to defend its actions, given inconsistent enforcement and the appearance that the man's politics played a role in the ban. Delta's CEO rather stupidly says so explicitly. When an idiot confronts an asshole, the asshole always wins.

This Trump ranter will fly Delta again, perhaps for free.

Snakes on a Plane said...

Maybe Delta would have banned the Ice Princess Medusa had they known she was about to endorse Trump! But then she unendorsed him, so I guess she can still get into the Delta Sky Club.

The bigger "common carrier" free speech issue is to get Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit declared public utilities, and prevent them from deleting or editing entries for political purposes. Right now, mainstream purveyors of fake news like the NYTimes and WaPo (Trump the Lurker!) are trying to distract from their dreadful reporting by pushing their competitors into censorship.

At a time when Trump is talking about revoking citizenship for dissident free speech, the mainstream's answer is still more censorship.

Hiss boo to both.

Titter said...

Snakes, she re-endorsed Trump. Election night she was cheering and posting "grab me by the pussy."

Today she's in court for biting a security guard. In the breast.

Trump will probably put her in charge of Title IX.

Or maybe the TSA.

Daisy Dukes said...

Delta had recently been shamed itself for not taking a black woman at her word that she was a doctor during an in-flight medical emergency.

This extreme ban of the white male Trump supporter is in that context, and also a reaction to the (true) Twitter claims that brown people get away with less than this guy. But, this guy's punishment is worse. A brown person/Muslim would have been kicked off the flight, questioned, allowed to fly later, but not banned for life (unless identified for the government's no-fly list).

The ban on the white guy by Atlanta-based Delta, and the kid gloves for Banks, can really only be understood through the byzantine logic of southern racial politics and score-settling.

What's new perhaps is the cheering of the ban by northern whites who previously would argue for proportionate reaction, and who would see the speech issues, even if they found the man's views and behavior abhorrent.

Alt-whites strike again.

Wiggy Azealia said...

I feel sorry for boob-biter Azealia's working class victims (and also for the now under-rated Iggy Amethyst), but I can't help but enjoy her drama. She's America's id.

With culture canary Kanye in the nuthouse all we got is Azealia. She's kind of a black version of white trash? Can we say black trash? Freaky trash, maybe.

You can pretty much imagine Azealia claiming she's a doctor just for kicks.

I wouldn't want a gyno or a gastro attending to my in-flight heart attack anyway.