Southwest Airline Pilot Under Fire for Apparently Telling Passengers ‘Let’s Go Brandon’
Southwest Airlines says they are conducting an internal investigation into one of their pilots who allegedly used a plane’s public address system to share a euphemism for an insult toward President Joe Biden.
Over the weekend, the Associated Press published a report about “Let’s Go Brandon,” the phrase that conservatives have adopted as slang meaning “F*ck Joe Biden.” The phrase originated when an NBC Sports reporter misheard the vulgar chant at a NASCAR race won by Brandon Brown, and since then, it has caught on as a popular jab at the president.
As Associated Press reporter Colleen Long tracked public usage of “Let’s go Brandon” around the country, she included one anecdote about its invocation over the weekend.
On Friday morning on a Southwest flight from Houston to Albuquerque, the pilot signed off his greeting over the public address system with the phrase, to audible gasps from some passengers. Southwest said in a statement that the airline “takes pride in providing a welcoming, comfortable, and respectful environment” and that “behavior from any individual that is divisive or offensive is not condoned.”
Long tweeted that she tried to ask the pilot for comment, and here’s how that apparently went:
TFW you’re trying to go on vacation and then the pilot says the very thing you’re working on over the loud speaker and you have to try to get him comment but then almost get removed from plane. https://t.co/xZI5FtLzJB
— Colleen Long (@ctlong1) October 30, 2021
The story got pick-up across other media outlets and the airline issued a statement: “Southwest does not condone Employees sharing their personal political opinions while on the job serving our Customers, especially when comments are divisive and offensive.”
“Southwest is conducting an internal investigation into the recently reported event and will address the situation directly with any Employee involved while continuing to remind all Employees that public expression of personal opinions while on duty is unacceptable,” their statement continued.
