‘This Is A Race Thing’: Black Woman Forced Off American Airlines After White Man Claimed He Felt Threatened By Her In First Class – View from the Wing

A black woman says she was kicked off of a Chicago – Austin flight on American Airlines because a white man felt threatened with her traveling in first class.

She says she was physically pushed off her flight and that a flight attendant declares “this is a race thing.” Her partner was removed from the flight as well.

Here you can see her being removed from the aircraft. She asks for police, because she doesn’t understand what she’s done to get kicked off. You can see a flight attendant waving ‘bye bye’ at her as she leaves the plane and is walked up the jet bridge.

@lovergirlmagic

#americanairlines #flights #race

♬ original sound – MAGIC ✨

She filmed some of the interaction onboard as she’s being taken off. She films the man she says complained about her being the only black passenger in first class. The airline agent removing her tells her that it’s the decision of the crew, and not something they can discuss with her.

@lovergirlmagic

Replying to @Michael

♬ original sound – MAGIC ✨

When she boarded the flight, she says, there wasn’t any overhead bin space above her first class seat. She apparently went to shift bags around in the bin above her seat to fit her carry-on, and the passenger in front of her ‘got up and yelled’ at her not to touch his bag.

She says she apologized, and talked with the flight attendant about where her bag might go – she didn’t want her MacBook and iPad too far from her. That’s when the man in front of her declares he felt threatened and uncomfortable with her, that “it was a race thing” and that she “mentioned something racist towards him” which she denies.

@lovergirlmagic

#americanairlines

♬ original sound – MAGIC ✨

An American Airlines spokesperson offers,

We take all allegations of discrimination seriously and our team is working to get in touch with this customer to learn more about her experience.

After eight black men – traveling separately, and who did not know each other – were kicked off an American Airlines flight after a body odor complaint, the airline imposed new rules for crew removing passengers for things like odor, attire, and attitude. The flight attendants involved in the incident were fired. This held off the reinstatement of a travel warning against American by the NAACP.

There are over 130,000 employees of American Airlines. With any company that size there will be a few who create bad experiences, and there will be misunderstandings, as well. That’s true of other airlines and in other industries, too. There isn’t always consistency across behavior and service standards at the airline. In that context, some prejudices and miscommunications may come out more.

American Airlines leadership certainly doesn’t do anything I can see to encourage racism amongst its employees, or even to tolerate it, though airline leadership is hardly diverse at the Texas-based carrier. There were several incidents in the past where American was unfairly criticized (including ones which formed the basis for the NAACP’s previous travel warning).

And yet these incidents do come up, which makes me wonder whether they say more about continuing issues of race in society than about the airline itself. At the same time, these issues seem to come up more frequently with American – but American operates more flights and carriers more passengers than other airlines, too.

Here it seems like an issue that combines other passengers who instigated a problem, along with crew who sided with those passengers. We have only one side of the story. The flight attendant who can be seen waving ‘bye bye’ to the woman as she’s removed from the aircraft suggests something happened to really get under that crewmember’s skin, and we do not know what it was (though the bye bye wave also seemed not appropriate, no matter what it was).