A YouTube travel reviewer had such a bad experience on a recent Malaysia Airlines flight that he began blasting the company on social media while the flight was still in progress. It turns out that the airline found out about his criticisms, and apparently, the crew took out its frustrations on him.
Josh Cahill is a travel vlogger who has 53,000 YouTube followers and 20,000 followers on Instagram. He posts reviews about his travels, some of which have accumulated more than 1 million views.
But on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to London in September, the Malaysia Airlines flight crew apparently didn’t care about his social media status. Instead, once crew members discovered Cahill was ripping the company while still in the sky, Cahill said they exacted their revenge.
In his full YouTube review, Cahill said it was probably the worst flight of his life, claimed he was bullied by the crew, and called it a “terrible experience.”
A few weeks before the flight, he said he contacted Malaysia Airlines and asked for permission to film inside the aircraft, and he said the social media team granted it. He said the cabin crew, which Cahill said usually provides amazing hospitality, was unfriendly when he first boarded the flight and that they couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs. When they served breakfast, he called it “anything but good.” Even worse, his in-flight entertainment screen was broken—a legitimate problem on a 14-hour flight.
“I was very frustrated,” he said. “I’m a paying customer, and this is nonsense.”
So, he vented his frustration on Instagram, tagging Malaysia Airlines in his post.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoGNmi-HPhx/
That’s when his experience got worse. Cahill said the airplane captain and the crew found out about the Instagram post, and they’d pass by with a tray full of water and wouldn’t give him a drink.
“No water for me,” he said. “No drinks. I was completely ignored.”
Eventually, he said the crew served him a meal after he agreed to stop filming (which he continued doing anyway), and once he exited the plane, a Malaysia Airlines representative was waiting for him and ultimately apologized to him. But Cahill also blasted the CEO Izham Ismail for not caring about his customers (the airline did not respond to a request for comment from news.com.au).
“This was a very humiliating experience,” Cahill said. “I felt like a complete criminal just for sharing my experience.”
But he’s a YouTuber, and he’s got the capability to air his grievances in front of millions of people. He apparently had a terrible flight, but in this case, Cahill used his YouTube channel to exact his own brand of turbulence on the airline.
H/T news.com.au