Free speech applies to government restrictions on speech. It hasn't much to do with rules and terms of private service. For example, you can't use claims of "free speech" to get HN to reverse a ban on you should that happen.
I don't agree with what a couple of easyJet employees seem to have done without easyJet's approval, but right of a private company or person to refuse service would seem to trump this? It's not like they are refusing service because of a protected category (like discrimination based on race, etc).
Although this isn't even happening in America, so I don't even understand what laws apply. Freedom of speech as Americans understand it do not really even apply in some European countries to the extent it does in the US because of ridiculous slander laws and the ability to be thrown in jail for telling lies (about the Holocaust for example, which is a pretty awful thing to lie about).
As you note, the concept of free speech in Europe is somewhat different than in the U.S., but this includes your first sentence not applying in Europe to the same extent. In at least some European countries, the conception of free speech is more of a positive right to speak, subject as you note to limitations (such as an exclusion of racial incitement from the ambit of protected speech). But that may mean that non-governmental entities are also prohibited from interfering with or retaliating for the speech, in at least some circumstances. The most common is that employers are sometimes limited in whether they can fire people for protected speech. Another case is public accommodations, e.g. using political affiliation to refuse service in a hotel or restaurant. I don't know much about transportation law, but it's not inconceivable that there would be some common-carrier rules there.
(The above written with "some" and "may" qualifiers because European laws differ considerably between countries, and sometimes within countries.)
> But that may mean that non-governmental entities are also prohibited from interfering with or retaliating for the speech, in at least some circumstances.
Especially for public accommodations, which an airline servicing a public airport might well be.
AFAIK, even the US put restrictions on what businesses can and can not do when they qualify as public accommodations (CRA, ADA, state-level anti-discrimination laws and state-level breastfeeding protection laws for instance).
Some Google-Books perusal suggests that airlines in the U.S., if they sell tickets to the public (rather than operating as private carriers) have an even stronger obligation than public accommodations, as common carriers who are required to provide service to the general public at the stated rates without discrimination, like phone companies, railroad companies, telegraph companies, ferry boats, etc. Whereas public accommodations like hotels are only prohibited from certain enumerated kinds of discrimination (race, religion, etc.). Seems to be a concept in 18th-century English law that crossed over to the early US, and stayed around in limited contexts (transportation and communications).
Admittedly, not specifically related to freedom of speech in that case.
the ability to be thrown in jail for telling lies (about the Holocaust for example, which is a pretty awful thing to lie about).
(a) Holocaust denial is illegal in some European countries (not the UK), but it's illegal because it's been specifically made illegal, not a general "it's illegal to tell lies" law.
I don't agree with what a couple of easyJet employees seem to have done without easyJet's approval, but right of a private company or person to refuse service would seem to trump this? It's not like they are refusing service because of a protected category (like discrimination based on race, etc).
Although this isn't even happening in America, so I don't even understand what laws apply. Freedom of speech as Americans understand it do not really even apply in some European countries to the extent it does in the US because of ridiculous slander laws and the ability to be thrown in jail for telling lies (about the Holocaust for example, which is a pretty awful thing to lie about).