Three black men have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against American Airlines, claiming they were briefly removed from a flight after a complaint about body odour.
Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph, and Xavier Veal allege that on January 5, they were singled out and humiliated by the airline on a flight from Phoenix to New York.
The men, who did not know each other and were not seated together, were approached individually by a flight attendant and asked to exit the plane. According to the federal lawsuit filed by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, they realized upon leaving that all the black men on the flight were being removed.
“American Airlines singled us out for being Black, embarrassed us, and humiliated us,” the men said in a joint statement.
The Texas-based airline responded by stating it is investigating the matter as the allegations do not align with its values. “We take all claims of discrimination very seriously and want our customers to have a positive experience when they choose to fly with us,” American Airlines said in a statement.
The lawsuit details that at the gate, an airline agent informed the men, along with five others, that they had been removed due to a white male flight attendant’s complaint about an unidentified passenger’s body odour. The men insist the odour claim was false and that the removal was racially motivated.
“There is no explanation other than the color of our skin,” the men asserted. They were eventually allowed back on the flight after no other flights to New York were available that night.
While waiting outside the plane, the pilot reportedly announced a delay due to a “body odour” issue, further embarrassing the men. “Throughout the flight—from the moment of their reboarding, in each interaction with the white male flight attendant, and continuing until landing—Plaintiffs experienced profound feelings of embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, anger, and distress,” the lawsuit states.
The men are seeking unspecified damages for the trauma endured. Emmanuel Jean Joseph likened the experience to Civil Rights hero Rosa Parks being forced to move due to racial discrimination, saying, “It’s a strange, crazy story that in 2024 we are still going through stuff like this.”
The lawsuit aims to ensure American Airlines faces more than a “slap on the wrist” for the incident.
-Pulseng
