All black passengers on an American Airlines flight were detained and ordered off the plane after a crew member decided they smelled, a lawsuit alleges.
The eight men, who did not know each other, had boarded Flight 832 at the Phoenix airport for a five-hour flight to New York JFK in January.
They were all seated in different parts of the plane, but they were all singled out and removed after a “white flight attendant” made a complaint about “offensive body odor” inside the plane, the lawsuit claims.
Staff spent an hour searching for an alternative flight but, when none were found, the men were asked to return to the plane and take their seats.
“I knew that as soon as I got on that plane, a sea of pale faces would look at me and blame me for their hour-long flight delay,” Emmanuel Jean Joseph said.
Eight black men, traveling separately, were kicked off an American Airlines flight in January after an attendant complained that they “smelled,” according to a lawsuit.
Three of the men, Alvin Jackson (left), Emmanuel Jean Joseph and Xavier Veal (right) are suing the airline, claiming they were traumatized by the experience.
Jean Joseph and her traveling companions, Alvin Jackson and Xavier Veal, had each taken a connecting flight from Los Angeles before boarding the plane in Phoenix.
Veal decided to record the incident on his phone after noticing that all the black passengers, and none of the white ones, were being removed.
“I started going crazy,” he said.
The video shows staff in the gate area struggling to find them another flight, with one man calling the incident “unprofessional” and another commenting that “This is not a random choice.”
A black American Airlines employee at the counter appeared to agree with the assertion that his removal was racially motivated, admitting, “I don’t disagree with you.”
The eight men began arguing their removal, and three filed the lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
“They had to get back on the plane and endure the stares of the mostly white passengers who considered them the cause of the significant delay,” the lawsuit states.
“They suffered throughout the flight home, and the entire incident was traumatic, disturbing, terrifying, humiliating and degrading.”
American Airlines has not yet offered an explanation for why the men were removed from the flight, but insisted in a statement that it “takes all allegations of discrimination very seriously.”
The remaining passengers were allegedly informed of the alleged reason for the transfer before the eight men were asked to return to the plane and take their seats.
An American Airlines employee appeared to agree with the suggestion that the move was racist.
“We want our customers to have a positive experience when they choose to fly with us,” they added.
“Our teams are currently investigating the matter as the claims do not reflect our core values or our purpose of caring for people.”
And the men’s lawyers are eager to hear the airline’s account of the incident.
“It’s almost inconceivable to find an explanation for this other than the color of his skin,” said attorney Sue Huhta.
“Especially because they didn’t know each other and weren’t sitting close to each other.”
The lawsuit cites other recent occasions in which passengers have alleged discrimination by the carrier.
It also references a 2017 travel advisory from the NAACP in which the civil rights organization advised against flying on the airline for eight months after “multiple instances” of alleged discrimination.
“Someone should have stepped forward and said, ‘Wait a minute.’ We can’t do this. This is wrong,” said Michael Kirkpatrick of the legal group Public Citizen.
“But instead, no one stepped up and intervened to stop it from happening.”
The lawsuit alleges that other passengers were informed that the men were removed because of their odor while they were off the plane.
“We’re walking down the hall of shame, so to speak,” Veal said. ‘It was horrible. It was a really traumatic experience.
“Unfortunately, I am a black man and I live in America.”
