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In a complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn, the
plaintiffs said they and five other Black men were removed from
the flight in January for about an hour after a white flight
attendant complained about a passenger with offensive body odor.
But none of the men ordered off the plane had an odor, and had
clearly been targeted based on their race because all of them
were Black, the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit. They called the
incident "traumatic, upsetting, scary, humiliating, and
degrading."
The men accused the airline of violating a Civil War-era law
banning race discrimination in contracts. They are seeking
unspecified damages for pain and suffering and punitive damages
for "malicious, willful ... and reckless conduct."
American Airlines said in a statement it was investigating the
matter, and that the claims did not reflect the company's
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," the airline said.
Susan Huhta, a lawyer for the three plaintiffs, said in a
statement that the incident was part of a "disturbing history"
of allegations that American discriminates against Black
passengers.
Last month, NPR and other outlets reported that a Black retired
judge from Chicago had filed a complaint with American saying
she was blocked from using a first-class bathroom on a flight
even though she had a first-class ticket.
And in separate incidents last year, track and field star
Sha'Carri Richardson and musician David Ryan Harris, who are
Black, said on social media that they were falsely accused of
wrongdoing by American flight attendants.
Richardson said she was removed from a plane for allegedly
harassing an attendant, and Harris said he was suspected of
child trafficking while traveling with his biracial children.
The airline apologized to Harris and said Richardson was booked
on a different flight.
In 2017, the NAACP urged Black travelers not to fly American,
citing what it said were a series of racially-based incidents.
The civil rights organization withdrew its advisory after the
airline agreed to update its policies and train employees on
implicit bias.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by
Alexia Garamfalvi and Daniel Wallis)
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