1. No, Mr. Man, you aren't allowed to board priority-wise with your kids, at least not based on Southwest's policies. Now, some gate agents might do you a solid and let you do it; others may let it slip past; still others may follow the rules. Them's the breaks. Don't be such a self-entitled idjit about it.
2. Dear Ms. Agent: Someone writing a mean tweet about you is not actually a threat.* Feeling so threatened by such a thing shows you're ill-suited to a public service industry. Having him and his kids pulled off the plane because he wrote a mean tweet about you* is rude and unwarranted move, exploiting our post-9/11 hyperphobic regulations about what constitutes a threat and what you can do about it. Threatening to call the cops* is doltish.And forcing him to delete the tweet or else miss his flight* was even more inane.
3. No, Commentariat, this does not demonstrate any particular flaw in Southwest, just in how a single gate agent behaved. As far as the story goes*, SWA folk beside the gate agent investigated and apologized (and gave Mr Man some flight vouchers). Anyone who thinks this sort of treatment is Southwest policy is not thinking straight.
*All the asterisked details come from what Mr Man has told the media. All that has been confirmed is that the man and his family were pulled off the plane, but later allowed to get on, and that SWA has apologized. We don't know what the tweet said, if it gave the gate agent's full name (which would be improper), if the verbal (or tweeted) language was far harsher or abusive, if the gate agent was as unreasonably awful as portrayed, if there really was a threat to call the cops, etc. So drawing vast conclusions here is sketchy to say the least.
What I do find interesting is why folks are so fast to jump on this kind of story. The comments (in the Ars article and in the underlying news site they link to) are interesting, in that they not only take the tale at face value, but devolve quickly into "SOUTHWEST ROCKS AND THIS GUY IS A JERK" vs "SOUTHWEST SUCKS AND THAT AGENT IS A JERK" (for which you can replace any number of epithets for "jerk").
I'll confess I generally enjoy flying Southwest, and don't at all mind their boarding policies (the uncertainty of what seat you'll get is balanced by knowing precisely where to queue up). But I think that flying — between TSA and the general deterioration of the flying experience as airlines generally crank up fees for everything — has become such an unpleasant experience that a lot of folk have a lot of pent-up emotions about anything that relates to it, which then spew out all over the targets presented, whether it's the Queue-Jumping A-Lister, or the Security-Abusing Gate Agent (and/or Her Company).
Reshared post from +Ars Technica
Man ejected from Southwest flight for tweeting that a gate agent was rude
The customer was told he had to delete the tweet before he could re-board.