When Lisa Carter-Knight joked around by posting drunken pilot tweets, she believes the pilot took it too far. She was forced to leave her JetBlue flight.
A routine procedure being officially described as “maintenance” turned sour when the passengers started joking about the pilot after a heavy delay. Flight 760 had been delayed, and jokes started flying on Twitter .
The one which received the worst kind of attention was the one from Carter-Knight, who used the social media site to send the following tweet just after 10:30 Tuesday night .
“I hope there is a fully stocked bar onboard.”
Upon reading the tweet, the pilot allegedly thought she was accusing him of being intoxicated and took offense. Apparently, the pilot had performed a sobriety test prior to the flight and was deemed sober, a routine procedure.
The first of the drunken pilot tweets seemed enough to upset him, though Carter-Knight was never told why she had been removed. JetBlue released a statement that the pilot had passed the sobriety test.
Lisa Carter-Knight once again took to Twitter to poke fun at the situation.
“Major debacle on flight 760 in Philly- pilot accuses passengers of accusing him of being intoxicated.”
The passengers were forced to exit the plane as the maintenance delay continued, and Carter-Knight was the one who took the passengers’ joke and made it public, and after successive tweets, the decision had been made.
As the passengers were re-boarding JetBlue flight 760, Lisa Carter-Knight was stopped at the gate. She had been allegedly denied passage for her social media harassment.
Woman kicked off @JetBlue flight for complaining about delays on @Twitter : http://t.co/F5rYPUlSmH pic.twitter.com/7zdWps7thx
— David Nelson (@DavidNelsonNews) October 8, 2014
JetBlue defended the pilot’s decision to remove her for her drunken pilot tweets and harassment.
“The decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly. If we feel a customer is not complying with safety instructions, exhibits objectionable behavior or causes conflict at the gate or on the aircraft, the customer will be asked to deplane or will be denied boarding especially if the crew feels the situation runs the risk of accelerating in the air. In this instance, the customer received a refund and chose to fly on another carrier.”
Lisa Carter-Knight, who was battling cancer and just had surgery, was furious with the aircraft service when they refused to let her board. She feels the pilot took the accusations too personally, and further delayed her trip home to her three children.
“Thanks for supporting single working mothers,” she fumed.
“We were all grumbling, saying this is ridiculous. No one said he was intoxicated…. They knew I was doing social media and they knew I took pictures. I was like, ‘This is America. You’re kidding, right?”
Do you think the JetBlue pilot did the right thing by forcing Lisa Carter-Knight off the plane after her drunken pilot tweets?
[Image via Wikipedia , Igor Normann/Shutterstock.com ]