True or false: Can you be removed from a flight for tweeting about a delay? JetBlue passenger Lisa Carter-Knight says it happened to her.
About an hour after JetBlue Flight 760 was scheduled to depart Philadelphia (PHL) for Boston (BOS) on Oct. 7, Carter-Knight says a fellow passenger joked about hoping the aircraft had a fully stocked bar. Reports say the pilot then turned the plane around on the tarmac and returned to the gate, citing concerns related to intoxication.
Carter-Knight, who witnessed the incident, tweeted about what she saw and says she was later denied boarding on a subsequent flight because of her social media posts: “Jet Blue just denied me to board the aircraft due to my social media coverage of tonight’s events. The pilot and staff denied service to me.”
JetBlue spokesperson Tamara Young told CNN: “The customer was not kicked off because of her tweets. There were other customers that also tweeted and boarded the plane. As we shared, it is not our practice to remove a customer for expressing criticism of their experience in any medium. This customer however was denied boarding due to unruly behavior and creating a disturbance by the gate area.”
According to JetBlue, a sobriety test cleared the pilot to fly. Passengers reboarded and the flight arrived in Boston at 1:12 a.m. JetBlue refunded Carter-Knight’s fare, and she continued her journey on another carrier.