My E-mail To Josh Cahill: I am Glad To Chat, However Solely In A Constructive Manner

A couple of days in the past, I wrote about how controversial airline vlogger Josh Cahill acquired right into a spat with Air Côte d’Ivoire. I shared my tackle the incident, after which acquired an e mail from his PA asking to interview me, and telling me to place my cash the place my mouth is, no matter meaning on this context.

I requested you all for suggestions on how I ought to deal with this example, and I very a lot respect all of the ideas folks offered, so I need to report again on the method I’m taking…

My response to Josh Cahill, plus an invite of my very own

In response to the e-mail I acquired from Josh’s PA (see my earlier submit), right here’s my e mail to Josh:

Hello Josh,

I acquired the e-mail out of your PA, asking to interview me, to be able to confront me concerning the smear marketing campaign you consider I’ve been working towards you, with screenshots of personal conversations that I’ve reportedly had about you.

I feel it goes with out saying that we share a ardour for aviation. I respect the distinctive number of airways you fly, and I additionally respect your common mission of holding airways accountable, as there’s no denying that many airways don’t do an awesome job at managing expectations.

I’d prefer to suppose that I name issues as I see them, as a result of simply as I’ve had posts taking situation together with your content material, I’ve additionally had posts in help of you, together with together with your Aero Dili and Qatar Airways conditions. That’s to not say that I’m all the time proper — I’m positively not — however I do my finest to be sincere, and to confess after I make errors.

With the scale of your following, I feel you additionally owe it to your viewers (and to the business) to be sincere, balanced, and clear, and it appears to me like that’s more and more changing into an issue that’s getting out of hand.

I’m not right here to inform you learn how to do your job, however I feel you already know the issues I’m referring to — your Legend Airways scenario (it appears you lately deleted the video?), continually that includes folks in movies and portraying them in a destructive gentle with out their consent in violation of airline insurance policies (and infrequently in violation of native legal guidelines), and in addition encouraging your viewers to “spam” airline social media pages once you really feel you weren’t handled accurately, whereas not sharing the complete story.

I’m very happy to take a seat down and have an excellent religion dialog with you, however I’m not assured that you just’re on the lookout for the identical, given the provocative tone of your PA’s e mail, plus your want to “current” to me “screenshots from group chats and private dialog on digital camera.”

This seems like extra an ambush than something, and never like an excellent religion try to have a dialogue. For that matter, I genuinely don’t recall ever having *any* destructive dialog about you in non-public, in order that makes me much more skeptical of the motive right here.

It’s exhausting to have the idea of a dialog be one thing that I don’t consider exists. I’d completely encourage you to share publicly what you consider I’ve stated about you in non-public, as a result of if it occurred, I’d after all come clean with it and apologize.

So sure, I’m blissful to have a dialog with you, however it will should be somewhat extra balanced than what you’re proposing. I’d additionally like to increase an excellent religion invitation to you. I’d be blissful to allow you to publish a submit on OMAAT so that you can share your perspective, together with something you consider I’ve stated about you that’s not correct.

Relating to the Air Côte d’Ivoire scenario, I additionally suppose there can be worth in you setting the report straight on a number of particulars, as a result of if I used to be flawed in my evaluation, I’d prefer to apologize to you. May you really clarify the way you booked your Air Côte d’Ivoire ticket? How a lot did you pay? Whenever you booked, what fare class did the ticket present as? After reserving via a 3rd celebration, did you verify with Air Côte d’Ivoire to pick out seats, and make sure the whole lot was appropriate?

Moreover, your ticket was reportedly canceled previous to journey, and also you have been rebooked in economic system. Did you obtain discover of that cancelation, and in that case, how far prematurely? Let me be clear, I fully agree with you that airways must come clean with their errors, and it’s attainable that Air Côte d’Ivoire did make a mistake. Nevertheless, you’re not sharing the entire story, and I feel that’s an issue, particularly once you’re a journey skilled who ought to know higher.

I look ahead to your response.

Greatest,
Ben

The double edged sword of giving folks consideration

I do need to tackle one additional level. Some folks have expressed disappointment that I’m giving him any consideration in any respect. I see the place these individuals are coming from, as a result of Josh positively looks like an “any publicity is nice publicity” sort of particular person, so possibly I’m enjoying into his technique.

Traditionally, I’ve on occasion written about Josh’s flight conditions as a result of he brings out the extremes of airways. Like, it’s fairly newsworthy (in our world) when a vlogger will get banned from an airline over a overview. However it’s additionally noteworthy how Josh generally acts, and treats airways unfairly.

So maybe I’m higher off simply not protecting him in any respect. On the similar time, the way in which I view it, it’s essential to generally present a balanced perspective on issues, in order that we don’t normalize sure conduct an excessive amount of. Broadly talking, a whole lot of “powerful guys” on-line have fairly fragile egos, and so they can dish it, however they’ll’t take it.

I perceive the purpose of simply ignoring him, however I feel the issue is all too usually that it’s him vs. the airline, and the airline usually isn’t capable of share issues publicly, because of privateness rules. So another balanced particular person calling out this conduct is price it as effectively.

I assume Josh not too long ago deleting his Legend Airways video is a transparent reflection of him not less than acknowledging a few of these points, even when he received’t in any other case admit it. And at a minimal, given the e-mail he despatched me (and which I shared right here), I do need to share my response, within the curiosity of transparency…

Backside line

Josh Cahill needed to “interview” me, which sounded extra like an tried ambush based mostly on one thing that doesn’t exist, to my information, relatively than an try to have an sincere dialogue. So whereas I’m blissful to have an excellent religion dialogue with him about what we do, and the way it’s honest to go about it, I’m not down for some form of a one-sided video with a questionable foundation.

In some ways, I feel the way in which he (or his PA, I suppose) approached me is fairly reflective of how he approaches many airways. So Josh, in case you’d prefer to interview me, I’m open to it, but it surely needs to be on agreeable phrases. In the meantime I additionally invite you to share your unfiltered opinion in a visitor weblog submit. I received’t attempt to ambush you, I invite you to share your take, and if I’m flawed, I’ll come clean with it and apologize.

Honest sufficient?