Family Asked to Leave Southwest Flight After Tweeting Complaint During Boarding

A Minneapolis man and his two children were asked to leave a Southwest Airlines flight because of a complaint tweeted during the boarding process.

Duff Watson of New Hope, Minneapolis, is an “A-List” member of Southwest’s Rapid Rewards frequent-flier program, a status which entitles flyers to early boarding privileges. On this occasion Watson was travelling with his two children, aged nine and six, and he had assumed they would be granted the same rights.

A gate agent informed Watson that this was not the case, and that they would have to wait after priority boarding had finished to enter the aircraft.