Number of people removed from planes for what they say were biased reasons climbing
One of the most jarring experiences of Nazia Ali’s life began at the end of a dream, 10-year anniversary trip with her husband, Faisal Ali.
After almost a week soaking in the ambient romance of Paris in July 2016, the Alis boarded a return flight to their Cleveland home. The short walk to their second-row seats left time to store their bags, remove their shoes, and murmur a few words of prayer asking for safe travel. That prayer ended with “inshalla,” God willing in Arabic.
But after 45 minutes, Ali noticed, the usual orders about electronic devices and tray tables hadn’t come. A Delta staffer approached.
“‘Mr. and Mrs. Ali, I need you to get off the plane with me,’” recalled Nazia Ali, a Pakistani-American who wears a hijab over her hair. “He said, ‘Please grab all of your things. You are no longer taking this flight.’”
The passenger removal that captured national attention last week — one in which law enforcement officers peeled David Dao from his seat and dragged him, bleeding, up the aisle — united Americans in righteous indignation. But cases in which airlines force passengers to surrender their seats are regulated and in a long-term pattern of decline. What appears to be a growing phenomenon — but less closely monitored by regulators — is the kind of passenger removal the Alis say they encountered, one driven by racial, ethnic or religious profiling.
While the Department of Transportation tracks removals due to full flights, the agency doesn’t log those tied to complaints of discrimination. But advocacy groups say that the number of civil rights complaints filed by people removed after flight crews or passengers raised security concerns related to innocuous conversations in a foreign language or other matters tied to skin color or religion spiked in 2016.
That year, passengers filed 94 civil rights complaints against U.S. airlines and those flying into the country, according to federal data. That’s up almost 45 percent from 2015.
The Alis’ story was among several removals that became public last year: the olive-skinned economics professor reported by a passenger for working on a mathematical equation; the man with a generous beard ejected after a passenger complained that he appeared Arabic and scary; the seven black passengers who weren’t traveling together removed after two had a dispute with a flight attendant; the Muslim woman who joined another passenger’s complaint about a fivehour tarmac wait; the black minister and civil rights activist escorted off a plane after nearby passengers lobbed race-themed insults his way. In each case, the airlines insisted security concerns alone motivated events.
The uptick in these cases could represent a new and intense round in the tug of war between national security and civil rights. But they have garnered little outrage, often freighted with nebulous proof of prejudice or indifference to it. Unlike Dao’s situation, they’re not the kind of customer service disasters that could ensnare any passenger and end in dramatic confrontations on video.