American And Delta Pilots Grounded After Posting Online Celebrations Of Charlie Kirk’s Assassination

by Gary Leff

For the last several days I’ve seen tremendous vitriol on social media by airline employees over the shooting death of Charlie Kirk. Most of it has come to my attention when passengers, or the general public, has flagged these comments to the airlines on Twitter – asking the airlines to do something about it.

And asking the Secretary of Transportation to do something about it, too. Secretary Duffy shares that American Airlines pilots have been removed from service over some especially vile social media comments that I won’t link to.

No matter what you thought of Charlie Kirk, he wasn’t ‘Hitler’ like some of the comments about him suggest. He was a man who argued for ideas that were often controversial, especially on college campuses where he reguarly shared them. He was a husband a father. And while he wasn’t someone I paid much attention to before recent events, I cried listening to air traffic control welcome the plane that carried him back from Utah.

Aviation watchdog JonNYC shares a message from Delta to employees letting them know that employees have been suspended pending investigation for violating the company’s social media policy. Here is that note.

We’re seeing Delta suspend pilots but to be clear comments are being made across the airlines and I’ve seen it at United, American and Southwest as well.

Delta as a company has generally ‘leaned left’ (though not as far as United did under the Biden administration, and hasn’t tacked as hard to the right as United has done under Trump – though Delta has adopted ‘Gulf of America’).

Pilots are one of the few unionized work groups at Delta, and ALPA will certainly take a dim view of suspensions – though pilots generally skew quite conservative. Vitriolic criticisms of Charlie Kirk aren’t likely to represent a majority view of their members.

One Mile at a Time says Delta has a social media policy and the airline is within its rights to enforce it.

Live and Let’s Fly distinguishes between celebrating Kirk’s death and quoting him on issues like gun control. Fair, but the stuff that’s being called out to the airlines goes way beyond this. (For the record I find suggesting Kirk was a hypocrite, or deserved to die, because he was shot with a gun and colorfully opposed gun control to be far from the strongest form of argument.)

I’d frame this a little bit differently.

  • Charlie Kirk’s signature setup in his campus appearances was called the “Prove Me Wrong” table or tent. He invited disagreeemnt and debate.

  • He was vehemently opposed to ‘cancel culture’ and argued it prevents “free and honest open debate.” He compared canceling people to retreating from discourse, urging confronting controversial views in conversation rather than silencing or ostracizing them. And his killing was literally an attack on free speech.

  • Kirk’s supporters wouldn’t have been fans of cancel culture when they were on the receiving end. They shouldn’t be resorting to it now.

  • And they would especially have objected to involving government (in this case, the Department of Transportation) to bring pressure on a company over online comments by an employee.

Delta, American and other airlines are absolutely within their rights to enforce social media policies against the most vile comments being made by employees.

For pilots, though, I think the question is something different. Their number one job is safety. And their fitness, including mental fitness, is always at issue. It’s also something directly regulated by DOT.

  • Celebrating death raises questions about fitness to fly.

  • And questions of a pilot’s judgment with respect to specific people and whether it’s noble or even good for the world that they are no longer alive are really scary. Ivanka Trump flies commercial. Her family was famously harrassed flying JetBlue to Palm Beach. Would a pilot who celebrates the death of Charlie Kirk online have a momentary lapse knowing the President’s family was onboard?

Taking a pilot out of the cockpit when there’s any question over their fitness to fly just makes sense. ‘Prove me wrong.’

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  2. Many people have been radicalized. But, I will say – the left has been really, really losing it and it’s “progressive” wing is bonkers. At least with the far-far-right you always knew what you’re getting. But, now, the “progressives” are being radicalized so much so fast, it’s very dangerous.
    Looks like some kind of civil war in the US is inevitable.

  3. The unemployment rate for Sept. might hit record levels.

    Nasdaq fired an employee over social media posts related to Charlie Kirk in the wake of his assassination.

    “We are aware of social media posts by an employee regarding the shooting of Charlie Kirk that were a clear violation of our policy,” the company said in a statement on X.

    “Nasdaq has a zero-tolerance policy toward violence and any commentary that condones or celebrates violence. The employee in question has been terminated, effective immediately,” it added.

  4. Running Jock…..the first Amendment, among other things, says “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…”
    Congress shall make no law. Companies however can enforce their own rules the on the public speech of people who represent them.

    Freedom of speech is guaranteed not to be made unlawful by congress. That is the extent of the first amendment on the topic. Therefore it is not gone.

  5. @Runningjock. Nope, it’s alive and well just as having consequences for what you say is alive and well. You’re going to say something own it stand up and say your darn right I said it because I believe it.
    But I think a majority of these people who are saying things and then getting disciplined are backtracking with mea culpas and “that’s not who I am. That’s not what I represent”.
    But of course it is.

  6. Kirk was not a debater in the classical sense, only in the terminally online youtube sense where he welcomed anyone who wanted to get yelled over and selectively edited into content for hate watchers. Also like most Republicans he loved cancel culture when it was applied to the groups that he was constantly frothing about. His murder was unfortunate but there were good people on both sides.

  8. Freedom of speech never meant freedom from consequences. I’ll defend anyone else’s freedom of speech to the extent it doesn’t harm others liberties. Like, if your speech causes imminent harm others (yelling ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater leading to a deadly stampede…) that’s a no-no.

    As for employers suspending or firing employees over ‘celebrating’ an assassination… yeah, that’s not ‘great’ either way.

    Like, no one should be celebrating Charlie’s death; I’m sorry, I don’t agree with most of his positions, but no one deserves to be murdered like that. Full stop.

    Also, reacting to this is inherently political speech in and of itself, so to lose your job over it is a bit much, too. We need pilots, flight crews, etc. Are we really gonna ‘fire’ everyone with a less-than-ideal opinion now and again? Well, maybe we are, but that doesn’t sound good. Lots of unintended consequences here.

    Wish we’d turn down the temperature. Right and left wing extremism is bad. Political violence is bad. The paradox of tolerance is a real concern here.

  9. Charlie Kirk didn’t deserve to die but I don’t understand why the taxpayer needed to send AF2 to escort his body to Phoenix. He was a political person but never held any public office that the taxpayer should’ve been responsible for his body transport.

  11. The airlines did what they felt they had to do. No one’s rights were compromised.
    How is it “celebrating death” for people to point out that Mr. Kirk’s death was one he himself said was worth it in order to keep our freedom to have guns? Why is that insensitive? And shouldn’t his children watch the footage? Mr. Kirk himself said children ought to watch executions.
    I don’t get this “celebrating death” thing. That’s not what’s happening.

  12. You cherry pick what were (arguably, even then) Kirk’s “good points,” and overlook that he was an ugly racist, sexist prick who had no business being elevated to sainthood by so-called conservatives.

  13. Watchdog,
    the simple reason is that companies are realizing how polarizing the US and political speech is today and they are not interested in alienating half of their customer base.

    And some of these people have gone well beyond just expressing their dislike for Kirk’s political views; they are expressing satisfaction in violent outcomes which absolutely no rational company wants on their reputation

    Presumably all of these cases involve people who have in some way publicly identified as employees of the companies that fired them; and while these cases all involve companies, I fully expect we will hear about cases involving churches, social organizations and other non-profit organizations.

    1990 is right. The temperature needs to come down. I don’t expect this event will lead to that as much as I would like this to be the time for change.

  14. The guy literally called for all homosexuals to be stoned to death. I have a family member who’s gay and I will not mourn the demise of someone threatening to murder people because that person is uncomfortable with somebody’s sexual orientation.

  15. @Christian – I do not think anyone expects you to mourn him. But if you are a pilot celebrating someone’s death that raises concerns.

  17. Kirk never called for homosexuals to be stoned to death. He embraced and befriended the gay community- even though he disagreed with them.

    Even Stephen King admitted that and apologized. You’d think a low life anonymous blogger could.

    But noooo….they’re not gonna let any facts get in the way of hate.

  18. @cairns what anonymous blogger claims he called for stoning? I am not familiar enough with everything he said to kmow one way or the other and it isn’t relevant to what I wrote in any case

  19. MAGA celebrates Ashli Babbett as a hero too. I never watched Charlie Kirk but I know that his followers hounded academics and other commentators who held opposite views with death threats. No free speech for them. Some got fired. The president of the United States has never before turned a civilian commentator into a hero honored with an Air Force plane, but then it was unprecedented for a convicted felon to get military funeral honors. This stuff is a political perversion of the meaning of honor.

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