RYANAIR RACE RAGE VICTIM BLASTS BACK
‘Airline would have booted me off’
A PENSIONER who was racially abused on a Ryanair flight says she would have been removed if the roles had been reversed.
Delsie Eunice Gayle, 77, wept as she told how she was called an “ugly black b ****** ”.
She said: “I feel very low. He pays his fare, I pay mine.
“So why did he abuse me for that? Because of the colour of my skin.
“If I had done that to him I’m sure they would have called the police to take me away.
“I feel really depressed about it. I go to bed and say what have I done?
“I haven’t done anything to attack him.
“Because of the colour of my skin, I was abused like that.”
The rant was launched by a man sitting next to her on the flight from Barcelona to London Stansted. It was sparked when the disabled pensioner struggled to get to her feet to let him past to get to his seat.
Another traveller on board the flight filmed him screaming: “I don’t care whether she’s f***ing disabled or not – if I tell her to get out, she gets out.”
In the footage, the man is seen jabbing the empty space between them, shouting at crew to “put her in another seat”.
He yells: “I tell you what, I hope someone sits there because I don’t want to sit next to your ugly face, your ugly f***ing face.”
A member of the cabin crew tries to calm him down, but it is the 77-yearold who is forced to move while her attacker stays put.
Mrs Gayle’s daughter Carol, who was travelling with her mum on their way home from a holiday marking one year since her father’s death, has revealed that the family have still not heard anything about the incident from the airline.
She told reporters: “We’re just upset with the way they’ve dealt with it. Nothing was done, he wasn’t moved. And we’ve had no apology or nothing.”
A spokesman for Ryanair said: “We have reported this to the police in Essex and as this is now a police matter, we cannot comment further.”
Essex Police said: “This incident, which we were made aware of this morning, is believed to have taken place on a plane at Barcelona Airport.
“Essex Police takes prejudice-based crime seriously and we want all incidents to be reported.
“We are working closely with Ryanair and the Spanish authorities on the investigation.”