Black Passengers Sue American Airlines For Removing Them From Plane Over Alleged Racial Discrimination, Body Odour Complaint

The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Three passengers have sued American Airlines over allegations that its employees removed eight Black men from a flight due to a complaint about an “offensive body odour”. 

The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

It was learnt that the group of eight Black men who were removed from the flight were not travelling together and did not know each other.

The incident occurred on American Airlines Flight 832 from Phoenix to New York in January.

The suit said they were the only Black passengers on the flight.

Emmanuel Jean Joseph, Alvin Jackson and Xavier Veal — the three plaintiffs— were on a connecting flight from Los Angeles. They alleged that at no point throughout the other flight did any employee from American Airlines mention an offensive odour to them.

One of the three plaintiffs, Jean Joseph told CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave he noticed that only Black men were being removed from the flight. 

Veal said he started freaking out and decided to record the incident on his phone.

According to the lawsuit, a “white male flight attendant” made the complaint about the offensive odour.

They were told they would be rebooked on another flight to New York later that day but were put back on the same plane when another flight to New York could not be found.

“I knew that as soon as I got on that plane, a sea of White faces were going to be looking at me and blaming me for their late flight of an hour,” said Jean Joseph.

The lawyer representing the three men, Sue Huhta, said seemed “fairly apparent that race was part of this dynamic.” 

According to her, American Airlines declined to provide her clients with any answers about the incident.

“It’s almost inconceivable to come up with an explanation for that other than the color of their skin, particularly since they didn’t know each other and weren’t sitting near each other,” said Huhta.

In a statement to CBS News, American Airlines said its “teams are currently investigating the matter, as the claims do not reflect our core values or our purpose of caring for people”.