Mob Mentality Wins in Jet2's Free Ticket Giveaway

Image via Jet2 Facebook.

It’s all fun and games until a riot breaks out.

The Telegraph’s Nicola Harley (h/t Business Insider) reports a Jet2 giveaway resulted in injuries and what seems to be an all-out melee of potential travelers trying to scoop up free airline tickets.

According to the report, the airline had fans follow its Facebook page for information on locations, giving away prizes at Leicester and Derby on Aug. 20. However, it’s at Derby when jubilation and fervor turned into a massive mob of ticket hopefuls.

Harley reports that there were no calls made to local police officials, but there are a few comments on the airline’s Facebook page that paint quite the scary scene. Here are words from those at the location:

Jennifer Topham:

“It was so badly done, all I wanted was a pair of tickets for my honeymoon and I thought it would have been a "spin the wheel" or "pick an envelope" kind of thing but it turned out to be a mob of people attacking each other and it was not worth getting injured for it. A lot of people got hurt and then I saw 2 winners sell their tickets they had won to some random person walking down the street, hardly fair and was not worth fighting for. Really disappointed with how this was done and the nature of some people, literally attacking others.”

Charlene Coy:

“It was so badly organised in derby, me and my friend got hurt we also had a baby with us and a toddler which our partner had to look after as people where attacking each other. We were so excited about this and it ended more like fighting for tickets all we would of liked was a nice ticket as we havnt been able to go away, people where selling there tickets at the bus station these people did not deserve them. This should have been felt with better. I have never seen Anything like it at all. We got elbowed in the face for what some hooligans of men scrambling for tickets not impressed!”

This is counter to one Zara Leadbeater, whom BBC.com quotes as saying the event was “good fun.” Granted, Leadbeater was one of the few fortunate enough to win tickets, but she added the following for good measure: “I set my 10 and 11 year olds amongst the chaos, so if I thought it was dangerous I never would have done that.”

The Daily Mail has video of a portion of the Derby incident, which seems innocuous considering some of the claims. Of course, the camera can’t catch everything. 

As for Jet2, its Facebook page has a laidback-cool mea culpa for those who took umbrage with the giveaway: “Congratulations to all those who got one of the 300 free seats we've given away today and many thanks to those who took the time to turn up! We’d also like to say sorry for any problems encountered in Derby — our giveaway there generated a little more excitement than anticipated and we know some people were disappointed, but watch this space.”

We certainly hope everyone is doing fine after what was at the very least a chaotic scene. Although we have to point out these ‘morphs’ are nothing more than frolicking Green Men in red, which may be the bigger issue in this story.

The most dangerous things in life are free:

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