A law professor was told he couldn’t get on his flight after Tweeting something critical about their customer service:
“I put out a tweet about it and then when I got in the queue, and a member of staff approached me and asked if she could have a quick word,” Leiser explained. “She said she understood I’d said something on social media about easyJet and then told me they were not allowing me to board the flight.
“I said you’re kidding me; I asked where that had come from and she told me I should know I’m not allowed to do that. I was stunned. I told her I didn’t really understand what she was telling me and she said: ‘You’re not allowed to talk about easyJet like that and then expect to get on a flight’.”
“She then asked me to step out of the queue and repeated that she was not letting me on the flight. I told her she’d better get somebody down to discuss this and she told me the manager was on his way to speak to me. Then she told said she couldn’t believe I thought what I’d done was appropriate. I was just sitting there in disbelief.
“So the the manager arrived and told me that based on my tweet they couldn’t let me board the flight because I wasn’t allowed to do that and I should know better. He then called over to the girl on the counter to instruct my bags be taken off the flight. 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. If I hadn’t had my ID badge I don’t think he’d have let me on the flight.”
OMG, the dear Professor needs a refresher. The First Amendment does not bind “easy Jet” to do anything as a private carrier. In fact, the more apposite right would be a citizen’s right to travel interstate. But both are limitations on government. If the Feds published a “no fly” list barring Republicans, the list should be unconstitutional on either ground (at least until wingers embrace Jihad martyrdom). Unless there is a federal common carrier regulation associated with the industry (bumping regs?), I believe that the good prof could have been barred for hurting easy Jet’s feefees. So why was there a big to do when an airline bumped three Imam’s several years back? Religious discrimination is prohibited in public conveyances at the state and federal levels. Just a little reminder that if you snark your boss, you can be fired, First Amendment be damned.
This happened in the UK.
They have free speech in the UK?
If so, we should bomb the snot out of them.