- Author, Max Matz
- The role, BBC news
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Three black men have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against American Airlines, alleging the carrier briefly removed them from a flight after complaining about body odor.
The men, who were not seated together and did not know each other, say all black men were removed from the Jan. 5 flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to New York.
“American Airlines singled us out because we are black, shamed and humiliated us,” the men said in a joint statement Wednesday.
The Texas-based airline said it was investigating the case because the allegations were inconsistent with its values.
According to a federal lawsuit filed by consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, the men had already taken their seats and were about to leave Phoenix when a flight attendant approached each of them and asked them to get off the plane.
Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph and Xavier Veal state that as they were leaving, they realized that “every black person on the flight had been removed.”
Each of the men had flown in from Los Angeles earlier in the day without incident.
At the exit of the plane, the three men, along with five others, were told by an airline agent that they were “removed because the white flight attendant complained about the body odor of an unidentified passenger.”
“There is no explanation other than the color of our skin,” the men said in a statement Wednesday, adding: “Clearly this was racial discrimination.”
American Airlines employees tried to rebook the men on other flights, but there were no other flights to New York that night. The group was then allowed to retake their seats on the original flight.
American Airlines said in a statement: “We take all claims of discrimination very seriously and want our customers to have a positive experience when they choose to fly with us.
“Our teams are currently investigating the case as the allegations do not reflect our core values or our purpose of caring for people.”
The lawsuit adds that while the men were waiting outside the plane, the pilot announced to passengers that there was a delay due to a “body odor” problem. Prosecutors say the stench claim is false.
“During the flight – from the time of re-boarding, in every interaction with the white male flight attendant, until landing – the plaintiffs experienced profound feelings of shame, humiliation, anxiety, anger and distress,” the lawsuit states.
“The act of returning to their seats after an unwarranted delay, passing predominantly white passengers, several of whom regarded them with anger and unnecessary suspicion, compounded their humiliation.”
The lawsuit says the airline should be forced to pay unspecified damages for the “trauma” the men suffered.
One of the plaintiffs, Mr Joseph, told the BBC that the “alienating” experience reminded him of civil rights hero Rosa Parks, who was forced to sit in the back of a bus in Alabama in 1955 because of state-sanctioned racial discrimination.
“It’s a strange, crazy story that in 2024 we’re still going through this kind of thing,” Mr. Joseph said.
He added that the lawsuit was necessary to ensure American Airlines didn’t end up “with a slap on the wrist.”
In 2017, the NAACP, a civil rights group, issued a travel advisory telling black Americans to avoid American Airlines due to discrimination.
They lifted the advisory the following year after the carrier announced it had made changes to its operations.