A few days ago, I wrote about how controversial airline vlogger Josh Cahill got into a spat with Air Côte d’Ivoire. I shared my take on the incident, and then received an email from his PA asking to interview me, and telling me to put my money where my mouth is, whatever that means in this context.
I asked you all for feedback on how I should handle this situation, and I very much appreciate all the thoughts people provided, so I want to report back on the approach I’m taking…
My response to Josh Cahill, plus an invitation of my own
In response to the email I received from Josh’s PA (see my previous post), here’s my email to Josh:
Hi Josh,
I received the email from your PA, asking to interview me, in order to confront me about the smear campaign you believe I’ve been running against you, with screenshots of private conversations that I’ve reportedly had about you.
I think it goes without saying that we share a passion for aviation. I appreciate the unique variety of airlines you fly, and I also respect your general mission of holding airlines accountable, as there’s no denying that many airlines don’t do a great job at managing expectations.
I’d like to think that I call things as I see them, because just as I’ve had posts taking issue with your content, I’ve also had posts in support of you, including with your Aero Dili and Qatar Airways situations. That’s not to say that I’m always right — I’m definitely not — but I do my best to be honest, and to admit when I make mistakes.
With the size of your following, I think you also owe it to your audience (and to the industry) to be honest, balanced, and transparent, and it seems to me like that is increasingly becoming a problem that’s getting out of hand.
I’m not here to tell you how to do your job, but I think you know the things I’m referring to — your Legend Airlines situation (it seems you recently deleted the video?), constantly featuring people in videos and portraying them in a negative light without their consent in violation of airline policies (and often in violation of local laws), and also encouraging your audience to “spam” airline social media pages when you feel you weren’t treated correctly, while not sharing the full story.
I’m more than happy to sit down and have a good faith conversation with you, but I’m not confident that you’re looking for the same, given the provocative tone of your PA’s email, plus your desire to “present” to me “screenshots from group chats and personal conversation on camera.”
This sounds like more an ambush than anything, and not like a good faith attempt to have a dialogue. For that matter, I genuinely don’t recall ever having *any* negative conversation about you in private, so that makes me even more skeptical of the motive here.
It’s hard to have the basis of a conversation be something that I don’t believe exists. I’d absolutely encourage you to share publicly what you believe I’ve said about you in private, because if it happened, I’d of course own up to it and apologize.
So yes, I’m happy to have a conversation with you, but it would need to be a little more balanced than what you’re proposing. I’d also like to extend a good faith invitation to you. I’d be happy to let you publish a post on OMAAT for you to share your perspective, including anything you believe I’ve said about you that’s not accurate.
Regarding the Air Côte d’Ivoire situation, I also think there would be value in you setting the record straight on a few details, because if I was wrong in my analysis, I’d like to apologize to you. Could you actually explain how you booked your Air Côte d’Ivoire ticket? How much did you pay? When you booked, what fare class did the ticket show as? After booking through a third party, did you check with Air Côte d’Ivoire to select seats, and confirm everything was correct?
Furthermore, your ticket was reportedly canceled prior to travel, and you were rebooked in economy. Did you receive notice of that cancelation, and if so, how far in advance? Let me be clear, I completely agree with you that airlines need to own up to their mistakes, and it’s possible that Air Côte d’Ivoire did make a mistake. However, you’re not sharing the whole story, and I think that’s a problem, especially when you’re a travel expert who should know better.
I look forward to your response.
Best,
Ben
The double edged sword of giving people attention
I do want to address one further point. Some people have expressed disappointment that I’m giving him any attention at all. I see where those people are coming from, because Josh definitely seems like an “any publicity is good publicity” kind of person, so maybe I’m playing into his strategy.
Historically, I’ve once in a while written about Josh’s flight situations because he brings out the extremes of airlines. Like, it’s pretty newsworthy (in our world) when a vlogger gets banned from an airline over a review. But it’s also noteworthy how Josh sometimes acts, and treats airlines unfairly.
So perhaps I’m better off just not covering him at all. At the same time, the way I view it, it’s important to sometimes provide a balanced perspective on things, so that we don’t normalize certain behavior too much. Broadly speaking, a lot of “tough guys” online have pretty fragile egos, and they can dish it, but they can’t take it.
I understand the point of just ignoring him, but I think the problem is all too often that it’s him vs. the airline, and the airline often isn’t able to share things publicly, due to privacy regulations. So some other balanced person calling out this behavior is worth it as well.
I assume Josh recently deleting his Legend Airlines video is a clear reflection of him at least acknowledging some of those issues, even if he won’t otherwise admit it. And at a minimum, given the email he sent me (and which I shared here), I do want to share my response, in the interest of transparency…
Bottom line
Josh Cahill wanted to “interview” me, which sounded more like an attempted ambush based on something that doesn’t exist, to my knowledge, rather than an attempt to have an honest discussion. So while I’m happy to have a good faith discussion with him about what we do, and how it’s fair to go about it, I’m not down for some sort of a one-sided video with a questionable basis.
In many ways, I think the way he (or his PA, I suppose) approached me is pretty reflective of how he approaches many airlines. So Josh, if you’d like to interview me, I’m open to it, but it has to be on agreeable terms. Meanwhile I also invite you to share your unfiltered opinion in a guest blog post. I won’t try to ambush you, I invite you to share your take, and if I’m wrong, I’ll own up to it and apologize.
Fair enough?
