Eight black men were passengers aboard an American Airlines flight scheduled to depart Phoenix for New York on January 5, 2024. They didn’t know each other, and weren’t seated together.
A white male flight attendant complained about body odor, so the flight crew rounded up all the black passengers and made them deplane. No white people were ordered off the plane. After about an hour, they were allowed to reboard, because no other flights to New York were available that night, but that couldn’t erase the humiliation.
In other words, when the airline couldn’t find another plane to put the alleged stinkers on, it put them back on the same plane, after making everybody wait for an hour. (Read story here.)
How plausible is it that all black passengers stink, but no white passengers do? If you’re the airline’s lawyer, do you defend this? I think the lawsuit will be settled out of court, and not just for free air miles. I’m also guessing the involved airline employees will soon be ex-employees, because their job wasn’t to make the airline look bad and cost it an expensive legal judgment.
P.S., the NAACP put American Airlines on a “no fly” list (i.e., issued a travel advisory) in 2017 because of its hostility toward black people.