Delta says that while the overall culture and corporations are moving away from DEI, they’re leaning in. And they’ve banned a comedian from the airline for life after he tweeted a photo of a Delta flight attendant’s pride pin (he quickly removed the flight attendant’s face from his post) and used vulgarity.
According to Delta’s ban letter,
During the flight, you took a photo of our flight attendant, who was wearing a pin permitted under Delta policies. You subsequently posted the photo on X, along with vulgar and hurtful language towards our flight attendant’s perceived sexual orientation. Delta is proud to employ 100,000 individuals from many backgrounds who serve all our customers and their communities.
In short, the post was disrespectful towards our flight attendant and contrary to Delta’s values and culture.
We have deemed your behavior to be unacceptable and made the decision to now allow you to fly Delta Air Lines. For the safety of our crew members and our customer, we cannot risk this type of behavior from you again.
Day 83 of being treated like a terrorist by@Delta – put on their NO FlY LIST for a tweet. The will not answer the phone or call me back. They claimed we needed to have an "IMPORTANT" conversation. My guess is a woke employee planned to shame me for not having the same views as… https://t.co/VTtRysc0gn
— Tyler Fischer (@TyTheFisch) October 29, 2024
Delta CEO Ed Bastian has advocated that any passenger banned from one airline should be banned from all airlines and placed on a terrorism list.
Delta takes significant subsidies from the federal government and from state governments. During the pandemic the federal government took an ownership stake in Delta (and other airlines). Banning passengers for offensive speech when not even flying seems problematic.
However, even if you think that this comedian should be banned from Delta – and banned for life – surely his tweet shouldn’t cause him to be banned by the federal government from all airlines forever?
Tyler Fischer was apparently once named “New York’s Funniest Comedian” and he doesn’t seem all that funny. But not being funny – or even offensive humor off the aircraft – seems a bit of a stretch for a ban to me.
@Uncle Jeff — Ugh, here you go again. Tom is spelled T-O-M, not J-E-F-F. As with your earlier comments on other posts at VFTW, you are misguided, at best.
On this post, more accurately, please note that Delta’s headquarters is Atlanta, which is a blue stronghold in a red state. Further, Delta has a practical monopoly in Atlanta, so they can offend nearly whoever they want and still get by just fine. Whether that’s a good thing or not depends on who you ask. However, I am not a fan of monopolies, regulatory capture, or any anti-competitive practices because I am for consumers, for small businesses, and a fan of personal freedoms, even if I personally find this comedian’s detestable.
The irony ! A jerk tries to get a gay employee fired but gets banned himself. Sooo sweet.
So… The post that this “supposed” comedian showed… The one that “got him banned”, was actually a lie.
“This is it”, he says in a post that accompanied this article.
Well, again, that was a lie.
The original post did not have a black box with text across it. Instead, he posted the flight attendant’s face.
It was a direct threat against the flight attendant (by posting the individual ‘s face) and this “comedian” got exactly what he deserved.
And while he may whine about his free speech, nobody is stopping him from saying anything (including whining about other individuals’ speech, which they have every right to say).
What he doesn’t have a right to do is to put other people in harm’s way and Delta has every right to protect their employees.
So, “No flights for you!” is perfectly acceptable. Now, continue your whining, funny man. Oh, and I hope the flight attendant takes legal action against you.
@Key West — I read ‘no flights for you!’ in the tone of ‘no soup for you!’ and I believe that was your intention. I miss that show. Wish it had continued.
Hey Delta,
We want to get from point A to point B without have people’s personal agendas shoved in our face.
Is that too much to ask?
I’m sick of our society enabling jerks who make our lives worse. Good on Delta for banning the whiny assh0le.
I think Tyler Fischer is a pretty funny guy. He can be a bit edgy sometimes. I have no idea what the deleted tweet showed, but it shouldn’t show someone’s face and try to shame them (that isn’t doxxing, which is revealing private information, like someone’s home address). On one hand, the employee is wearing whatever she/he wore in a public setting, so there’s no expectation of privacy. On the other hand, businesses should have the right to fire customers if they feel like their employees are abused. There’s no freedom of speech in a private company. But the punishment seems overly harsh. I would think that making amends for the offense should be sufficient to let him back on. And certainly trying to ban him on other airlines is over the line. If Delta pushes it too far, it might attract some unwanted attention from the federal government.
I normally like your blog, but why don’t you be more specific about the content of the original post?
Your viewers can view it here: https://imgur.com/a/bVoG1Kv
Not sure why any flight attendant needs to wear anything other than name and language pins. Any company that allows it is just dumb. Are swatstika pins ok? Who decides? Sounds like passenger is a jerk who was triggered by poor business policies. Next we will hear about Delta’s federal licenses being paused for being too woke. I suppose that will be fine by the you get what you ask for crowd here too. People get a grip. Both parties here are wrong.
@Gary Delta is a private company. They can ban whomever they want.
If you don’t like it, you can vote with your wallet and choose to fly another airline.
Delta may be a publicly traded corporation following corporate law but they are also a common carrier and are required to carry most passengers without differentiation. Sooner or later a court case will make it’s way to the Supreme Court and precedent will take place on whether or not a person such as this can be denied the right to travel on a given airline and what factors can be considered to deny a person the right to travel in such a manner. I would consider brawling at the gate area to be an indication that such behavior may continue onboard so boarding can be denied. There is probably no need for a lifetime ban in that case unless such actions take place again. Posting online in a provocative manner may not reach even that standard unless a specific threat has been made. Delta’s control over their employees is much different than their control over their passengers.
Not a fan of DEI but ultimately Delta is a private business and should be allowed to decide who they will or will not serve. A comedian playing the victim role over this is sad. He’s not a victim. He did this to himself. Delta has every right to tell him to fly elsewhere.
Why stop there, ban him everywhere, and take away his driver’s license and his guns? As much as I think he is a very “average” comedian there is this little thing called free speech for better or worse.
Bad behavior should have consequences, & hate is not free speech.
If it involved an employee + hate speech + public posting, yes he should be banned for life from Delta. And this shows very poor judgement by the passenger so yeah, I can see why not wanting him on other airlines would be appropriate. The last thing you want is an attention seeker from publically harassing employees in a confined space for hours.
@David O
Delta is not a private company as they are heavily subsidized by taxpayers.
Delta is a common carrier and not a private automobile.
Almost no one believes a “private company” can ban “whomever” they want, even if airlines were private and not common carriers, you would flip out of Spirit airlines got tired of the rift raft and decided to only let Whites and Eastern Asians fly. In fact, you’d be calling for their heads.
@Ken Vengren
“Hate” is free speech. Hate is also extremely subjective. Nazis and Soviet Communist felt the same way as you.
Many people are fine with cruelty and hate, until they face consequences for their actions of hate, cruelty and division. The comedian is not sorry for what he did, he’s only sorry he was held accountable for what he did.