A lawsuit filed by three Black American passengers claimed that a flight attendant aboard an American Airlines flight rounded up every single black passenger on the flight and ordered them to get off the aircraft, complaining of an ‘offensive body odour’ inside the aircraft.
There were eight Black males in the aircraft – who did not know each other – had boarded Flight 832 at Phoenix Airport in Arizona for a flight to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport. They were all seated in different parts of the plane but all were picked out and ordered to exit the flight after a ‘white male flight attendant’ made the complaint earlier this year in January.
“I knew that as soon as I got on that plane, a sea of white faces were going to be looking at me and blaming me for their late flight by an hour,” Emmanuel Jean Joseph, who was among the passengers singled out, was quoted as saying by the New York Post.
The flight crew looked for an alternative flight for an hour and then asked the men to get back to their seats.
The lawsuit claims that other passengers were told the men were removed because of their smell while they were off the aircraft.
Jean Joseph and fellow passengers Alvin Jackson and Xavier Veal were also rounded up. Veal recorded the entire event on his phone. He noticed that only black passengers were being removed.
A Black American Airlines attendant at the desk seemed to agree that their removal was racially motivated, saying, “I do not disagree with you.”
The eight men discussed their removal, and three of them filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
American Airlines has not yet explained why the men were removed from the flight but said they “take all claims of discrimination very seriously.”
“We want our customers to have a positive experience when they fly with us,” the airline added.
“Our teams are currently investigating the matter, as these claims do not reflect our core values or our purpose of caring for people.”
The men’s lawyers are eager to hear the airline’s explanation.
“It’s almost impossible to find another explanation for this besides their skin colour. Especially since they didn’t know each other and weren’t sitting near each other,” attorney Sue Huhta told the Daily Mail.
‘We’re walking through the aisle of shame, if you will. It was horrible. It was a really traumatic experience. Unfortunately, I’m a black man and I live in America,’ Veal told the news outlet.
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