If Airlines Treat Celebrities This Badly, How Do You Think They’ll Treat You?

by joeheg

Airlines get a bad rap, often deservedly so. According to USA Today, in 2018, two of the twenty most hated companies in America were airlines, with United coming in at number 19 and Spirit, not surprisingly, getting the number 9 slot. I think this comes from many customer unfriendly policies airlines implement, ranging anywhere from non-refundable tickets, excess baggage charges, Basic Economy tickets and charging for everything from Wi-Fi to blankets and even sodas while onboard. I’ve read post after post of Facebook friends who have been treated horribly by airlines. But here’s a question – if airlines are willing to treat celebrities, sports figures and national icons horribly, what makes you think you’re any different? Please know that I’m writing this knowing that these celebrities are complaining about #firstworldproblems.

Stories about how badly airlines have been treating “important” people are nothing new. NASA Astronaut Buzz Aldrin had to deal with being told that he was too late to check in for his flight on Delta.

If you identify more when sports heroes have problems with airlines, here’s a series of Tweets from Manchester United footballer (soccer to those of us in the US) who was kicked off a British Airways flight.

I love this one because of the textbook reply from British Airways to send a DM (and get the rant out of public view). Even sports heroes get the same treatment as us. I also enjoy when anyone calls a company “a shambles.”

Mayim Bialik Tweeted her displeasure with United about her treatment over the size of her carry-on bag. We feel you Mayim.

Pink’s husband, Carey Hart also had some problems with United.

It’s nice to see he gets the same Twitter response that any of us should expect. A request to take the conversation off of Twitter and onto DM.

These celebrity Twitter rants about airlines aren’t new. I mean, how badly did American Airlines have to be to aggravate Geordi La Forge from Star Trek (or the Reading Rainbow guy or Kunta Kinte).

It’s not just on the airplanes that celebrities get poor treatment. It also happens in the airline lounges.

If will.i.am had free passes from the United MileagePlus Explorer card, this never would have happened.

Who can forget when Alec Baldwin was kicked off of an American Airlines flight because he wouldn’t stop playing Words With Friends.

Lastly, here’s a Tweet from Kevin Smith back when he was kicked off a Southwest plane because the flight crew decided he was too large for a single seat.

So I ask you this – if airlines aren’t afraid to treat celebrities with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media like nobodies, what makes you think they’re going to care about you? For the airlines, it’s all about the bottom line or their metrics and if that means they’re willing to leave some people at the airport because they got there two minutes late, then so be it. I guess it can be said that airline travel is the great equalizer of our society. No matter how much money you have, how important you are or how much you paid for the ticket, airlines will treat everyone with the same level of indifference, and you have to respect that level of consistency.

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Flight Attendants Told Not to Ignore Passenger Call Button - View from the Wing May 13, 2019 - 2:36 pm

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