photo courtesy of Pixabay user Juno1412
(SEATTLE) Alaska Airlines is accused of violating the Civil Rights of two passengers who were escorted off a plane back in February 2020. The pair were on a flight from Seattle to San Francisco.
The two American citizens were on a business trip and seated in First Class. During the flight, another passenger in the first Class cabin looked over and noticed one of the men was texting in Arabic.
According to the lawsuit, the passenger didn’t know how to read Arabic, but reported the texts to a flight attendant on his way off the plane.
The flight attended reported the incident to security, and the two black, Arabic men were subjected to what the lawsuit calls an “unjustified, unnecessary, and self-serving display of discriminatory security theater” — even though only one of the men was reported.
The executive director of the Washington chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations says there’s an ongoing issue known as simply “Flying While Muslim” and that this is “one of the most egregious examples of this happening in recent years.”
A lawyer representing the pair tells the Times “Alaska Airlines could have in that moment chosen to not listen to a passenger’s complaint, but they did.”
Alaska Airlines isn’t commenting on the lawsuit itself, but in a written statement said “Alaska Airlines strictly prohibits unlawful discrimination. We take such complaints very seriously. Our greatest responsibility is to ensure that our flight operations are safe — every day.”
