Woman with rash removed from flight
HALIFAX• An Edmonton woman says she was publicly humiliated and booted off an Air Canada flight after a rash was mistakenly labelled as contagious.
Jeanne Lehman, a community activist and officer with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, said she is seeing a psychologist for trauma she endured boarding a plane at Halifax airport.
“I feel, like, rejected and (given a) lack of consideration, you know.”
Lehman, a French-speaking black woman, calls the treatment systemic racism.
Her trouble began when a rash appeared last week. She went to an emergency room on Friday where the doctor told her she had a non-contagious rash and was OK to travel. Upon boarding, she told the attendant that she wasn’t contagious. But before takeoff, Lehman said she saw a woman wearing gloves and a face mask walk towards her.
“She said, ‘Take all your belongings and follow me.’ I said, ‘For what?”’
“She said to me, ‘You are contagious, I cannot leave you on the plane.’ I said,
THIS ISN’T THE WAY YOU SHOULD SAY IT, LOUDLY, TELLING EVERYONE I AM CONTAGIOUS.
‘Ma’am, not only am I not contagious, even if I was, this isn’t the way you should say it, loudly, telling everyone I am contagious.’”
Lehman said passengers were taken off the plane while attendants disinfected her seat.
Lehman said she was escorted to Halifax’s QEII hospital by Air Canada staff. She said the doctor diagnosed her with shingles and gave her a note confirming she is safe to travel.
Air Canada staff gave her a hotel room and food vouchers, and she was sitting in first class on a plane to Toronto the next day.
Air Canada responded to a request for comment via email. “We acted out of an abundance of caution. Regrettably, the situation resulted in inconvenience for some customers.”