A comedian is fleshing out details of a recent incident in which she says former Ohio Gov. John Kasich took her first-class airplane seat.
In a podcast Friday, Julie Klausner provided details about an incident in which she says Kasich refused to downgrade to premium — a move necessitated because a pilot needed a seat to rest before his next flight.
Klausner also insinuated that Kasich paid the least out of all first-class passengers for his ticket on the New York to San Francisco flight.
“Basically, there was a pilot sitting in the seat that was originally assigned to John Kasich,” Klausner said of the Jan. 16 incident. “When a pilot flies, and often it’s last-minute as it was in this case, they bump the person in the class that paid the least. And I’m not shading Kasich for getting a deal that was somehow better than mine … I’m just saying he happened to have been bumped.”
The comedian said that Kasich also engaged in a call with a friend and was talking negatively about the situation and pilot right in front of his face.
Klausner shared her account of the incident on Twitter as it happened. Rather than moving to premium, she said, Kasich instead took her seat. She then offered to take a later flight, rather than fighting for the seat.
Klausner’s publicist told the Washington Examiner she had no further comment. Kasich did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Omg this is insane. Kasich was asked to move to premium from first class & took my seat instead. I volunteered to take a later flight instead of fighting. @alaskaairlines, your employees are the BEST, sweetest people. And thanks, airport employees, for working without pay today. https://t.co/vmnBEIds0S
— Julie Klausner (@julieklausner) January 16, 2019
The alleged episode happened just two days after Kasich left the Ohio governorship, in which he served eight years. Kasich sought the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, unsuccessfully, and is frequently mentioned as a potential 2020 GOP primary challenger to President Trump.
Adding to tension around the incident, TSA employees were at the time working without pay, due to the partial government shutdown, which has since ended. Klausner in her podcast thanked employees from TSA and Alaska Airlines she said had to deal with the ordeal.
