My flight of humiliation
Targeted because of ‘race, color,’ he says
A MOROCCAN-BORN Delta Air Lines passenger says he was targeted by an abrasive flight attendant and berated by police at LaGuardia Airport — though all he did was sleep during his short flight.
Yassine Siqal, 30, was returning from a visit to North Carolina on May 8 with his fiancée when, he says, he encountered a travel experience from hell.
“I will never forget this day,” said Siqal, who is a Muslim and lives in Astoria, Queens. “All this interrogation, all these questions. Then the police officer realized that this is nothing more than just discrimination against color and race.”
Siqal said he was nodding off on the 90-minute flight when the flight attendant barked at him that he should move to a seat in an empty row across the aisle. He said he declined because he wanted to stay in his assigned spot next to his girlfriend.
Prior to that, he said, the flight attendant had spotted him yawning and asked if everything was all right — to which he replied everything was fine and he was simply tired.
Siqal, upon disembarking, was grilled for nearly 40 minutes by cops as he tried to explain that he would miss his shift as a waiter if he wasn’t allowed to leave.
“As a human being I feel stepped on and humiliated,” he said.
His girlfriend, Darejan Gogiberidze, 34, a cancer research physician at Mount Sinai Hospital, corroborated his account, saying that Siqal had been behaving normally during the flight.
“It was embarrassing to be in that situation and for doing what? Yawning and sleeping on the airplane or just for being a Muslim?” Gogiberidze said.
Delta defended its decision to call cops.
“Our crew, operating Delta Connection Flight 5378 from Charlotte to New York City, made the decision to contact law enforcement officials based on their observance of concerning behaviors by the passenger toward his seat companion, including physical actions and verbal tones,” the airline’s statement said, without elaborating.
ExpressJet, which was operating the flight, said the “circumstances surrounding this event are still under investigation.” Siqal’s attorney Marc Albert said he plans to take legal action.
“He does not want this to happen to others, and he thinks it’s disgraceful that he and his girlfriend had to go through it, and he wants Delta to investigate what happened and acknowledge that it did happen,” Albert said.