Kuwait Airways Threatens YouTuber, Calls Police On Him, Promises To Sue

Long story short, he boarded the flight, and the purser noticed he was recording his experience (while respecting the privacy of others). He was asked about this, so he “came out,” and explained he’s a YouTuber. The purser confirmed his YouTube channel, and everything seemed fine, and the rest of the flight proceeded as normal… until around 90 minutes before landing.

At that point, the purser showed up at Dan’s seat:

• The purser asked Dan if he had gotten permission to record the flight, to which Dan responded that he hadn’t, stating he didn’t realize that he needed to get permission
• The purser responded that permission is always required to record on Kuwait Airways flights, and that if Dan didn’t have permission, he couldn’t post the video online
• So Dan asked what he should do, and the purser said he needed to reach out to Kuwait Airways’ marketing department, and once he has permission, he could book a new ticket on a different flight
• Dan suggested that he could reach out to Kuwait Airways about posting the video, but the purser insisted that he needed permission before recording the video

At this point they were at a standstill. So the purser walked off, and returned around 10 minutes later:

• The purser claimed that the captain was very upset and angry, and that Dan would need to sign a piece of paper with his name and contact information, with a promise that he wouldn’t post anything from the flight
• The purser then claimed that Dan had disturbed every single passenger on the flight, and that the captain was upset (Dan emphasizes that he records on an iPhone, and 99% of what he records is inside his suite)
• At this point the purser told Dan that if he didn’t sign the paper, “I can’t guarantee your safety when we land”
• Dan asked for written proof of this alleged law about not being allowed to record, and the purser said they didn’t have it in writing, but insisted he needed to sign the paper
• The purser emphasized that Dan was bothering “everyone” on the flight, so Dan asked if he could speak to one of these passengers
• The purser went to get a lady from row one, who claimed she was disturbed by the recording, and said “in Kuwait, we don’t like being recorded”
• Dan showed the woman his video clips to convey that he hadn’t recorded her, and then they had a nice conversation, with her talking about how great Kuwait Airways is, and how everyone at the airline knows one another

After the conversation with the other passenger, the purser returned a third time, demanding that Dan sign a piece of paper. He refused, and that was the end of that… until landing.

As Dan prepared to get off the plane, the purser stopped him, and said the captain needed to have a word with him. A moment later, the captain emerged, and reportedly said the following, while wagging his finger:

“You need to understand, in our culture, we don’t record other people. My people, when we go to your culture, we respect everyone, we respect your rules, we respect your laws, we don’t break the law. Here in Kuwait it’s completely illegal and forbidden to record anyone and it’s also illegal to record on planes. Do you understand there will be consequences for this?”

At that point, two Kuwait Airways managers showed up at the aircraft, and escorted him into the terminal. They told Dan that he couldn’t leave unless he deleted everything, and stated that if he posted the video, he would be sued.

Police officers then approached, first boarding the aircraft to talk to the crew, and then returning to talk to Dan. The police claimed that the crew said that he was recording “all kinds of sensitive security equipment.” He said that was completely false, so they went back to the crew. A short while later, the police returned and said “it’s fine, you can go.”

This is just complete idiocy, but not surprising

I wish this incident were surprising, but it’s not. These kinds of power trips on government owned airlines, where you have some “local” pursers who have a God complex is hardly an isolated incident.

The irony here is that they established early on that he was a YouTuber. So rather than trying to put their best foot forward and provide a nice service, they couldn’t help themselves, and instead turned this into a much bigger story than it needed to be.

Let’s be perfectly honest — anyone who works in some form of media would salivate at an opportunity to share a story like this, so the lack of common sense here is mind-boggling.

To be clear, if Dan had recorded other people, then it would be reasonable of them to ask him to delete that footage. But that wasn’t the case here, and it seemed they were satisfied with what he showed them.

Now, in hindsight, is there a way this could’ve been handled differently? Of course everyone has their style of deescalating things. Under normal circumstances, I go all-in on deescalation (to a fault), because I don’t like conflict. It did seem like the purser and Dan went back and forth for quite a bit, and since none of us were there, it’s hard to know how exactly it could’ve otherwise played out.

Early in the conversation. When Dan was told he needed permission to post the video, I would’ve probably gone along with that, and just said “oh, okay, I’m so sorry,” and called it a day. I wouldn’t have consulted him further, and I’m not sure if that would’ve prevented the whole “signing the paper” situation.

Furthermore (or alternatively), I would’ve probably questioned why he was okay with this at the beginning of the flight, and only raised the concern shortly before landing, because that makes no sense.

Again, that’s not to say that he did anything wrong, or that one approach is better than the other, but we all have our own ways of handling situations.

Bottom line

A YouTuber flew Kuwait Airways first class. The purser established early on that he was recording, and didn’t seem to have any issues, until 90 minutes before landing, when he claimed it was illegal. The purser demanded that the passenger sign a piece of paper promising that he wouldn’t post a video online. The police ended up getting called, though in the end, he was able to go on his way…

What do you make of this Kuwait Airways incident?