Three black men have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against American Airlines, with claims that they were removed from a flight after a complaint from an unidentified passenger about their body odour.
The men, Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph, and Xavier Veal, alleged that they later realised it wasn’t about body odour but racial discrimination as all the blacks on the flight were removed.
The men, who were not seated together and did not know each other revealed that every black man was removed from the 5 January flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to New York, BBC reports.
The reports added that each of the men had flown from Los Angeles earlier that day, with no issue.
The men had already taken their seats and were preparing to depart Phoenix when a flight attendant approached each of them and asked them to exit the plane.
According to the airline agent, they had been removed because a white male flight attendant complained about an unidentified passenger’s body odour.
The pilot further made an announcement telling passengers that there was a delay due to an issue with “body odour”.
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” American Airlines singled us out for being Black, embarrassed us, and humiliated us. There is no explanation other than the color of our skin. Clearly, this was racial discrimination,” the men said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
However, the lawsuit had stated that the airline should be forced to pay unspecified damages for the “trauma” the men endured.
The Texas-based airline has promised it was investigating the matter.
According to him, “We take all claims of discrimination very seriously and want our customers to have a positive experience when they choose to fly with us.
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