Southwest Airline Pilot Signs Off With “Lets Go Brandon” After Greeting Passengers
An AP reporter, Colleen Long, was working on a story about the ‘let’s go Brandon’ chant that has swept the nation and climbed to the top of the iTunes charts. From college football stadiums to Joe Biden stump speeches, the chant is everywhere.
But Long was stunned when she was on a Southwest Airlines flight and one of the pilots ended a routine announcement to passengers with “Let’s Go, Brandon.”
She wrote on Twitter: “TFW you’re trying to go on vacation and then the pilot says the very thing you’re working on over the loudspeaker and you have to try to get him to comment but then almost get removed from the plane.”
She added: “Also in defense of the airline, I was asking them to open locked cockpit and probably sounded insane.”
She wrote in the AP:
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.”
Veteran GOP ad maker Jim Innocenzi had no qualms about the coded crudity, calling it “hilarious.”
“Unless you are living in a cave, you know what it means,” he said. “But it’s done with a little bit of a class. And if you object and are taking it too seriously, go away.”
America’s presidents have endured meanness for centuries; Grover Cleveland faced chants of “Ma, Ma Where’s my Pa?” in the 1880s over rumors he’d fathered an illegitimate child. Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were the subject of poems that leaned into racist tropes and allegations of bigamy.
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
Also in defense of airline I was asking them to open locked cock pit and probably sounded insane!
— Colleen Long (@ctlong1) October 30, 2021
The airline did respond: “Southwest Team takes pride in providing a welcoming, comfortable, and respectful environment for the millions of Customers who fly with the airline each year and behavior from any individual that is divisive or offensive is not condoned.”
— Colleen Long (@ctlong1) October 30, 2021