​Passenger kicked off flight after live-tweeting pilot’s sobriety test

A JetBlue aircraft (AFP Photo)

A JetBlue aircraft (AFP Photo)

A passenger at Philadelphia International Airport claims she was kicked off a JetBlue flight after she shared the details of her trip’s three-hour delay on Twitter, which involved a sobriety test for the pilot.

The incident occurred
Tuesday evening, when Lisa Carter-Knight told a local news
network she was booted out of a flight to Boston by the pilot
himself – after another passenger made a joke that ended up
grounding the plane for hours. Apparently, when a pilot overheard
the joke, he believed he was accused of being drunk.

“We had been waiting an hour, so there was a joke by another
passenger – it had been a long night and he hoped there was a
fully stocked bar on the airplane,”
Carter-Knight said to
local ABC affiliate WPVI. “The pilot ran out and said ‘that’s
it, everybody out by the gate.’ I’ve been accused of being
intoxicated.”

The pilot reportedly claimed that such an accusation meant he was
legally obligated to take a sobriety test before taking off.
Although the JetBlue flight was slated to take off around 8:30
p.m., it was delayed for more than three hours while the test was
administered.

“As a precautionary measure, a sobriety test was
conducted,”
JetBlue said in a statement to CBS Philadelphia. “The test demonstrated
the pilot was sober and he was cleared to perform his
duties.”

During this time, Carter-Knight posted a series of tweets
detailing the delay. She said the pilot falsely accused other
passengers of questioning his sobriety, described him as
“irate” in one tweet.

When the time came to board the plane, however, Carter-Knight
found that she was not allowed, thanks to her Twitter coverage of
the event.

“I never accused the pilot of being drunk,” she said.
“I simply was communicating with family that was concerned
that I was still on the ground in Philadelphia.”

Nonetheless, Carter-Knight ended up flying back to Boston on a
separate airline the next morning.

In another statement to WPVI, JetBlue responded to Carter-Knight’s complaints.

“It is not our practice to remove a customer for expressing
criticism of their experience in any medium,”
the statement
reads. “We will remove a customer if they are disruptive and
the crew evaluates that there is a risk of escalation which could
lead to an unsafe environment. 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.”


Source Article from http://rt.com/usa/194348-jetblue-passenger-tweet-sobriety/

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