Ryanair awarded damages for bomb threat tweet
Ryanair has won a case in the US District Court ruling against an anonymous Twitter user who posted a bomb threat last year.
The tweet read: "Hello @Ryanair, you have 15 minutes before I commit the biggest terror attack the UK has ever seen on one of your planes. Be ready".
Ryanair obtained a number of subpoenas from Twitter, which helped identify Brian Lake from Pennsylvania as the person responsible for posting the threat in February 2016, using the handle @GunnexGod.
The airline then filed extortion and defamation proceedings in the US earlier this year.
The US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania this week ruled in Ryanair’s favour and awarded $284,148 in damages, including punitive damages.
Ryanair’s Robin Kiely said: "We welcome this US District Court ruling. The safety of our customers, people and aircraft is our number one priority and we will not allow anyone to impugn, threaten or undermine our 32-year unblemished safety record and will pursue any ‘anonymous’ social media offenders through the courts."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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