Now Reading
Southwest Pilot Sign’s Off Greeting to Passengers Over Public Address System With ‘Let’s Go Brandon’

Southwest Pilot Sign’s Off Greeting to Passengers Over Public Address System With ‘Let’s Go Brandon’

a blue airplane on the tarmac

A Southwest Airlines pilot allegedly ended his greeting to passengers over the public address system on a flight from Houston to Albuquerque on Friday morning with the phrase: “Let’s go Brandon”.

The seemingly innocent-sounding phrase is actually code for “f**k Joe Biden” and in recent days has been chanted outside Southwest Air’s corporate headquarters in Dallas by anti-vaccine mandate protestors.

Even more controversially, the phrase has also been uttered by pilots on an air traffic control channel. An air traffic controller calls out a Southwest Air flight before several pilots used the phrase on the open frequency.

The phrase has become popular amongst some Republicans to criticize President Joe Biden’s administration and is taking on a new life to protest Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Its history can be traced back to an October 2 NASCAR race at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama when an NBC reporter was interviewing 28-year-old racer Brandon Brown. The crowd behind Brandon were chanting something that the reporter at first thought was “Let’s go Brandon” in support of the racer.

In fact, it soon became clear that the crowd were chanting: “F**k Joe Biden”.

Southwest Air’s pilots have been especially critical of Biden’s vaccine mandate which will require all employees of federal government contractors to be fully vaccinated by December 8.

Last week, the Southwest Airlines Pilot Association (SWAPA) lost a legal bid to block the vaccine mandate after a federal judge in Texas ruled the airline was simply following the law by requiring pilots to get vaccinated.

Employees can request a medical or religious exemption and Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly has appeared open to granting an exemption to anyone who applies for one.

Nonetheless, pilots remain outraged that the airline imposed the mandate without negotiating with their union. SWAPA continues to pursue legal action against the airline over a number of pandemic-related disputes.

Passengers, though, are less than impressed with a pilot sharing his political opinions over the public address system. On Twitter, some customers have called for a boycott of the airline, while many others are calling on Southwest to investigate the incident and discipline the pilot.

View Comments (5)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

© 2024 paddleyourownkanoo.com All Rights Reserved.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to paddleyourownkanoo.com with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.