Admit it there’s no better forum for spur-of-the-moment complaints than Twitter, especially if you’re a celebrity or lucky enough to have a celebrity-like following. In past editions of the Icarus Award we’ve had supermodels, actors and Kardashians all voicing their complaints on the social network. This week the 140-character mode of communication is in the spotlight with two angry celebrity travel rants, a “we’re not happy til you’re not happy” Spirit Airlines flight, and more. Keep reading Lily J. Kosner’s roundup and remember to vote in the poll of the week’s worst flop.
Bad Seat Tweet
Fashion Police star Kelly Osbourne thinks Delta needs to work on its design. Last week, the passenger in front of Osbourne “almost knocked [her] out putting her seat back.” After calling the passenger an “a**hole”, on Twitter naturally, Osbourne then suggested that Delta “fix [its] f**king seats.” Delta chose not to respond or to retweet.
New Born Carry-On
If you don’t have a visa, why not try the carry-on? That seems to be what happened with two Egyptian parents en route back to the United Arab Emirates. At the Sharjah International Airport customs officials noticed that the didn’t have a passport or visa for their infant. Instead of turning around, the couple waited for the officials to change shift and placed their baby in the carry on bag and sent it through the X-ray scanner, which is highly dangerous to humans. The couple has since been charged with endangering the life of the child, who luckily appears unharmed.
Image credit: Wikimedia, user: tamtam7683
Starships Will Be Touched
While Osbourne’s rant went out to her over 2 million followers, more than 13 million tweeters witnessed pop star Nicki Minaj ‘s run-in the TSA. The Starship singer tweeted, “’Pretty sure I was just overtly fondled @ this check point. By a very old lady w/an accent. Word?’ The incident continued when Minaj photographed the agent in question, which got her in further trouble. Most of the drama played out one-sided on Twitter and Minaj was back on route to London to perform her aviation-inspired song of the summer at London’s Wireless festival in Hyde Park.
Cross Country in 19 Hours or Less!
We expect cross-country flights to be long and occasionally delayed, but turning a 5-hour flight into a 19-hour ordeal is the latest Spirit Airlines’ snafu. The incident started when the LAX to Fort Lauderdale flight had to make an unplanned stop in Houston after an 86-year-old partially blind man became irritated. The incident caused the flight crew to work the maximum allowable time, requiring the airline to find a back up crew. For 2 hours, passengers remained on the tarmac unsure of what was set to happen. Then the delayed passengers were held at the terminal for several more hours to get a back up plan in place. Finally, almost 20 hours after takeoff, the plane landed in Florida. Spirit has issued an apology and given a $100 future flight credit for to all customers.
TSA Taking Candy
Boing Boing and Twitter enabled the story of the TSA taking candy from a deaf teen to go viral. However, after reviewing 120 hours of closed circuit footage, the TSA announced this week that the report is largely fabricated. The unnamed student claimed that the TSA confiscated candy, ate it in front of him and called him a “f**king deafie.” The TSA responded in a statement noting, “after a review of the video, TSA found no footage that matches the information in the blog post, such as Officers removing food during any bag search and eating it, or anything to indicate that they were pointing at and ridiculing a passenger.” Though this rumor appears bogus, the bad publicity continues for the organization with new reports of TSA misconduct with a child en route to Disneyland with the Make-a-Wish foundation starting to go viral.
Ash on their Hands won the last Icarus Award. For all the winners and loser, visit our Hall of Shame Icarus archives.
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By Lily J. Kosner for PeterGreenberg.com
Related links: Radar, LA Weekly, Daily Mail, Huffington Post, Modern Mom
