Don’t mess with Maximus unless you want some very, very bad headlines.
Virgin Australia has learnt the hard way not to mess with a man who can build an ark after refusing to allow Russell Crowe’s kids to take their hoverboards on a recent flight.
The father of two, who saved Sydney’s Rabbitohs, could not manage to save what Santa brought with the airline stopping his two sons at check in and being told that his children’s hoverboards were not permitted in the plane’s hold.
The furious father took to social media to demand an answer.
He was simply told that there was no way those hover boards were getting onboard.
Fairfax Media reports that Crowe forgo the flight and that he and his two sons, Charles, 12, and Tennyson, 9, did not progress past the check-in desk forgoing the flight.
Comedian Joel Creasey bought into the furor tweeting “You’re a millionare [sic], babe. Get some perspective. Enjoy Tiger. They don’t even have real pilots x”.
At this stage Crowe played his Dad card.
“I’m a father Joel, with two kids at an airport, trying to start our holiday,”
It has been reported that all major Australian airlines and most international carriers have banned hoverboards, or as Crowe called them “Segway boards” due to safety concerns.
Virgin Australia updated its dangerous goods policy to include them on its no-fly list in mid-December.
Top Comments
I'm on the fence with this one, Virgin is right in putting safety first, but I also doubt this is common knowledge. I had no idea that you couldn't bring this kind of thing on a plane. As someone said it would be in the list, but lets face it lots of us don't read that whole thing, or we have years ago and not realised anything has been updated. Yes it is of course the person's responsbility to read the conditions, and not Virgin's responsibility to individually contact customers about this one item (if after all they have it in their conditions anyway), but I do get that it isn't common knowledge and that if you weren't allowed on board with them, then what do you do with these board? Crowe can buy some more, but the average parent can't afford to just check them out at the airport!
Also why on earth are these things legally sold if they are dangerous?
So I do agree that Virgin were in the right, BUT i can understand Crowe (or any hoverboard owner's) frustration. I think the problem with the internet, and being famous, is that most of us would just have had a slight hissy fit, then later calmed down and actually realised we were wrong and then it would all be forgotten, but the minute you get on twitter etc to unleash your anger you can't really back down. For instance i remember once having a customer go off at me about something and then the very next day he came in to apologise to me. Similar issue in that he had been very inconvenienced by my company, so I was quite sympathetic to his frustration but at the same time our company had it's reasons for doing what it did. Once the man calmed down he realised that he had gone overboard and profusely apologised to me, which I thought was big of him to do so.
I think Crowe would be best off to get on Twitter and say something like, "I was very frustrated about the hoverboards and I thought Virgin was somehow making up a silly rule, but I've since realised that most airlines agree with them, and they were only doing their job for safety, I apologise if I got a bit heated."
Anyway the good thing about Crowe's dummy spit is that we all know now that we can't bring hoverboards on board.
Now I just hope that I can bring my magic carpet with me!
How are Virgin supposed to know that his kids are going to want to bring segue boards on the flight? Why would they randomly phone people to let them know?