hydro001

The video showed him arguing with the police officers and initially refusing to disembark so don't think it's just the mobs. There are certain behaviours which are not acceptable in public, on aircrafts etc

WickedStepMother

I spent some time yesterday reading the DM comments (I was bored). These are two of my favourites:

- “Highly unlikely that a business class passenger will be out of pocket. Generally their tickets will be fully flexible.”
- “The idea of paying for business-class flights on BA within London, from London to a European destination -- more money than good sense. But that's lawyers for you.”

VSLover

he wasnt downgraded ON THE PLANE. he clearly thought he could talk his way into his preferred seating once onboard and then had some words which clearly worked against him by his own admission in the video.

and it obviously went on long enough to annoy other pax enough to think to film, which, thank goodness. no sympathy, especially given he used his connections to plant this story to publicly shame BA for what is a standard industry practice re oversales.

Agent69

How about 'I hope he wins compensation against the airline and the police . And the nanny should independently seek legal advice on this matter ' (and that got over 1,000 likes)

adrianlondon

It turned out he wasn't very high-flying at all.

T8191

An irrelevant bit of Nanny impact from an old TR of mine ... 2015, and our first [and only] BA First.
TR: Our first BA First, and our first visit to St Lucia

VSLover

please tell me ITV is currently filming "Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport" because thats all I could think of when I saw the police

Kleffen

“One of the finest legal brains within these fields” , which one is planning… He didn’t plan the outcome of this very well.

I can understand he is pissed that they didn’t inform him until boarding area, but it’s only a two hour flight. Had it been a longhaul flight, obviously the difference between club and economy had been something to trip over, but this was just too much

suley

For anyone not wanting to avoid visiting DM site - the video is directly hosted at here

I am guessing our esteemed friend probably thought swearing was acceptable in this situation, regardless of if you agree or disagree, as Helen Lovejoy would say think about the children! Setting a poor example and I always say reflects you as a person.

BlueThroughCrimp

The rolls eyes from 2C when he said all he did was swear was, well, interesting.

orbitmic

And as a barrister, perhaps think about how this might play in the hands of the other party. In this case, if for the sake of argument, one takes the passenger's claim that he believes they were fully within their rights at face value, I would argue that swearing is simply offering the other party a cheap and unexpected trump card on a silver platter.

Indeed, if the airline had - as he suggests - no leg to stand on in the first instance, then all of a sudden, they can just hide behind the swearing to justify what he considers a disproportionate reaction. It will be very hard to answer that, because once it is accepted that there was an argument and you were swearing and the plane was already moving, what risk the tension created becomes a matter of interpretation and the crew's argument will be "safety first, he was swearing, and we did not know if the situation would continue to deteriorate or where this would stop, and rather than risk an incident 35,000 feet up, the reasonable mitigation was to offload the passengers so that they could calm down and the rest of the passengers could be carried safely and without further delay". And quite frankly, this is an argument you will never manage to convincingly answer regardless of whether you were right or wrong in the first place as the point of focus will cease to be the initial situation to become the swearing/escalation instead.

Vinotraveller

You've hit the nail on the head - and I speak from personal experience (albeit not swearing at cabin crew). I will have to be slightly vague in my account below!

Many years ago a colleague was so unreasonable towards me that I broke my cardinal rule and used a phrase similar to "I don't give a f**k what you do with product X", after about 20 minutes of me being goaded and insulted. Said colleague constantly used the "f" word in company presentations and general interactions and so I didn't think my use of it would shock them, indeed the company culture encouraged foul language. However, my use of the word led to a complaint as they were (rather miraculously) offended and terribly upset. To cut a long story short it led to me leaving and starting my own company.

The rest is history and I owe the complainant a debt of gratitude as everything turned out fine for me and I got the shove to move on.

The reason I tell this story is that it did teach me to never swear in challenging situations as you will likely come out the worst for it, even if you were initially the victim. You immediately lose "the moral high ground" and lay yourself open to being accused of intimidating behaviour etc.

Carnforth

The following appeared in the comments section of one of the DM's incarnations of the story.
Whether or not it's true,(after all, we live in the age of the internet where nothing can be guaranteed), it's not a case of jumping on the 'I was there' bandwagon as it certainly predates similar accounts.
It does however seem to me to be a more believable account of why an aircraft be wheeled back and police called to encourage a passenger to leave the
aircraft than the damage limitation exercise which has appeared in several publications.

<<
I was on this flight. The man in question was acting in a completely unacceptable manner; swearing at the cabin crew and repeating "do you know who I am?" whilst flashing his Executive Club gold card around..... BA did the right thing to remove him from the flight. We were delayed by more than two hours and missed our dinner reservations, finding only a motorway services open for dinner on the first day of our holiday. Mr. Banner should be the one providing compensation to the 80+ passengers who had their evening ruined by his appalling behaviour.....Further, someone of his standing should know that the cabin crew do not have the ability to cater for his demands once boarded and that he should have sought compensation after the flight or declined to board the flight rather than act in such a reprehensible manner once on board.
>>

Kleffen

A few days back when this thread got initiated, I was thinking about joking about him using the infamous “do you know who I am?”. And there it was. The most tacky way of behaving arrogant no matter who you are… Not even the Pope, Nelson Mandela or whoever should use that silly phrase…

HIDDY

To be fair to him I'm willing to cut him some slack but only if nanny was indeed downgraded at the gate and was on the same booking as the family. If that was the case BA cocked it up.