Porter Airlines forces passengers to delete videos of flight delay from phones

Travellers claim to have been threatened with police action

Passengers waiting to board a delayed flight from Boston Logan International Airport in Massachusetts to Toronto, Canada, said they were shocked when airline staff threatened to call the police unless they deleted videos from their phones.

The incident on 5 January occurred after travellers were held on the tarmac for two hours by Porter Airlines due to “a mechanical malfunction” with the plane, according to passenger Kira Wegler. She said passengers were told there was a problem with the latch door to the luggage compartment.

Passengers were eventually deplaned and the flight was cancelled.

The PA system was broken, so travellers had to queue up to receive information about what would happen next. At this stage, some disgruntled customers got their mobile phones out and starting filming Porter staff, who were addressing passengers.

“At that point, the personnel came from behind the desk and started threatening us to call the police if we don’t delete the videos off of our phones and show evidence that it’s gone from our trash bin,” Wegler, a Toronto resident, told Global News. “They were going to have us arrested.”

Fellow passenger Ellen Howard called Porter Airlines’ staff “aggressive”.

The Porter employee told passengers filming was not permitted in the airport; however, according to Massachusetts Port Authority officials there is no law or policy that prohibits filming inside Logan Airport except in secure areas and of all security procedures.

A Porter Airlines spokesperson told Newsweek that the incident was as a result of a “misunderstanding” by a team member who didn’t realise filming was permitted outside of secure areas, and that Porter has “advised the team members involved for future reference.”

The spokesperson also disputed the allegation that the flight cancellation was due to a mechanical fault, saying that the aircraft was grounded because “one of the aircraft doors froze”. He added that the issue could not be fixed before the crew exhausted their regulated duty day limits, meaning the flight could not depart.

The distinction is important, as in America airlines are not responsible for paying compensation if a flight is delayed or cancelled as a result of weather.

Passengers were forced to stay in Boston for an extra three days until they could board another flight to Toronto due to the extreme winds and snow that blighted the East coast last week.

Porter Airlines assisted passengers in finding local hotels and covered the cost of some meals but will not be paying any compensation, citing weather as the reason for the flight cancellation. “The aircraft door issue would be attributable to weather in this case due to the conditions," said the airline spokesperson.

He refuted Wegler’s claim that passengers were threatened with arrest over filming in the airport.

“While it was indicated at the time that police based at the airport could be called to address this situation, there was no direct statement that passengers would be arrested,” he said.