2 Muslim Women Kicked Off AA Flight Since Flight Attendant Felt “Unsafe”

by Eric

On Wednesday morning, 2 Muslim women (who are American citizens) were kicked off their American Airlines flight from Miami to Washington DC. Niala Mohammad, a journalist and producer for Voice of America, and an unidentified friend (who reportedly works for the federal government), were on AA 2239 which was delayed for several hours.

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Niala Mohammad posted a lengthy description of the incident on Facebook, which is copied below. In short, Niala Mohammad reported that she had simply been asking for water during the extended flight delay, but was accused by a flight attendant of “instigating” other passengers. When Niala Mohammad took a photograph of that flight attendant, it triggered a series of events that resulted in air marshals and police officers escorting the pair off the flight.

According to Niala Mohammad:

Last night my friend and I were removed from American Airlines (AA) flight 2239 traveling from Miami International Airport (MIA) to Washington-Reagan National Airport (DCA) because the main crew airline attendant felt “unsafe” by our presence. Yup, the only two apparent Muslim girls on the plane got kicked off. Not sure if it was my friend’s statement “evil-eye” bracelet, the fact that I was watching a Pakistani drama on my iPhone, or our obvious Muslim last names that made him uncomfortable, but here’s the kicker, we both work for the United States Federal government.

This is the story.

According to the flight attendants, our initial flight delays were due to two changes with the flight crew and then the ground
crew forgot to fuel the plane. After those delays, we began experiencing heavy rains and were delayed indefinitely. After exceeding the 3 hour federal regulation, the only people allowed to deplane were those who wanted to cancel their flight or make other travel arrangements at their own expense. After over 5 hours aboard the grounded plane, we were only offered one glass of water, a bag of pretzels, and told there would be no more food or beverage. A flight attendant informed us we were not allowed to purchase in-flight food unless we were in the air and we were denied the right to deplane to get food or use the airport restrooms. Air fuel fumes also began to permeate the cabin space. At one point, a white male passenger sitting directly behind us initiated a private conversation with my friend about the lack of customer care. Suddenly, a male flight attendant walking by singled out my friend and stated, “If you have a problem, you can get off the plane.” My friend replied, “I have no problem–I am simply stating facts. We were given one glass of water in 5 hours.” The attendant responded by once again threatening my friend, “Well, I can have you removed for instigating other passengers.” The flight attendant was not wearing his name badge and did not identify himself.

Since I was wearing headphones (watching my Pakistani drama), I only realized something happened when my friend’s demeanor changed. She appeared shocked and visibly upset after the attendant walked away. When she and the white male passenger behind us told me what happened, I suggested we write a complaint to AA. At that time, a number of AA personnel were on the plane allowing new passengers to board our delayed flight. A female flight attendant walked by and I asked for the male flight attendant’s name, given his rude and aggressive tone to my friend. There was some confusion as to whether the male AA employee in question was a flight attendant, a pilot, etc so before walking away to assist other passengers, she directed us to “point him out to me when you see him.” After she walked away, we saw him again and my friend took a picture so the female flight attendant could help identify him for us. A third flight attendant walked by and told us that by taking a picture, we were committing a “federal offense”. (Disclaimer: taking a photo of an airline crew member is not a federal offense, but apparently there is a publicly unknown AA policy that crew members can arbitrarily enforce with customers when a photo is taken without their consent.) The initial female flight attendant came back, asked us what happened, and we showed her the picture. She identified the male flight attendant as “Rog as in Roger” and then asked that we delete the picture. We immediately obliged and deliberately showed the flight attendant that we were deleting the picture. Thankfully, we still had the picture saved because it went to the “delete” folder.

Ten minutes later, AA customer relations representative Ms. Lourdes Broco boarded the plane and kindly asked if we could follow her to the front. We happily consented, hoping we were finally going to be provided with water, but instead we were told to bring our belongings. Waiting for us at the ramp were several armed Air Marshalls and Miami-Dade police officers. When asked why we were being removed, we were informed that it was because “Rog” felt threatened by us. However, the white male passenger my friend was speaking to was ironically not removed from the plane with us. We complied with all requests and provided Ms. Broco with our version of the events. She apologized and stated that under normal conditions, the male flight attendant would have been removed from the plane, but AA couldn’t spare to do that given the extreme flight delay and the many issues with the crew. She freely admitted that it was obvious that the flight attendant “exaggerated” the incident. We also overheard Ms. Broco inform the security officers that when she boarded the plane to assess the situation, she was confused because we weren’t creating a scene, we were sitting in silence playing on our phones.

Without asking for anything, we were assigned to the next available flight to DCA, we were offered a $200 credit for future travel with American Airlines and a $24 food voucher, but the damage was already done. We appreciated both Ms. Broco’s attempt to offer us some compensation and the 5 security officers good humor in deescalating the situation. However, it didn’t take away from the fact that a rude AA employee got away with treating passengers with such utter contempt and discrimination. Although we were encouraged to document the incident to AA customer relations, we still experienced insult and embarrassment as two minority Muslim-American women. For being such a “threat” to an AA attendant, it’s telling that the Miami-Dade police officers joked with us and posed for this picture with the “pretty harmless” airplane menaces. This was a fairytale ending in comparison to the other largely publicized AA incidents targeting Muslim Americans (one was actually a Sikh) that occurred earlier this year. Our story also has many parallels to an incident experienced by Internet political and social commentator Cenk Uygur, who was removed from an AA flight in April 2016. Could this be a trend?

We eventually left MIA at 12:40 am the next morning on AA flight number 1486, which arrived at DCA at 2:50 am on 3 August. Consequently, we both missed work that day. This entire experience was not very “American” of AA and the incident demonstrated the ongoing, indiscrete racism that I was untouched by prior to 9/11.

I guess it’s now worthless to even complain about the inbound 3 hour flight delay we experienced departing from DCA to start our vacation to Miami. We hope that Department of Transportation will hold AA accountable given that new rules state that an airline can be fined up to $27,500 for each passenger on board a flight affected by egregious tarmac delays.

What are your thoughts on this incident?

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15 comments

Raleighlaura August 5, 2016 - 5:50 pm

I’m afraid that “Flying While Muslim” is the new “Driving While Black.” These things will keep happening until the “white male passenger” types decide that unfair treatment of minorities must stop.
Remove people for behavior, not for other people’s anxiety. I feel anxious when I see people fly with dirty feet and flipflops, but don’t want to see them removed from the plane because of it!

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Boraxo August 5, 2016 - 7:08 pm

Sounds like the flight was in extreme violation of DOT rules on flight delays, entitling everyone (including those ejected) to compensation. The women who were essentially IDB’d should also be provided with additional comp – cash rather than inadequate voucher. Also The flight AAtendant who lied should be terminated.

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Craig August 5, 2016 - 7:19 pm

Well, we’ve ONE side of the story. Let’s hear the other side before forming an opinion, shall we?

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Brian August 5, 2016 - 9:51 pm

These Moslem vicitimnators need to get a life. I think they should have been thrown in jail as would likely have happened to a white male for talking back to a flight attendant. No sympathy whatsoever for jerks like these.

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Anne August 7, 2016 - 11:53 am

maybe u need to read the story again. the white passenger behind these 2 girls complained as well but was never thrown off the plane

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bcbg2687 August 5, 2016 - 11:40 pm

Totally agree with Craig. We need to hear BOTH sides of the story!!! The title of this post ” kicked off” is too biased !! Why is the author only presenting one side of the story ?

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Wes August 6, 2016 - 7:18 am

Typical biased reporting as indicated by the title. I’ll answer bcbg’s question as to why both sides of the story aren’t presented: because the purpose of the article isn’t to inform, but to stir emotion. You don’t need silly things like facts in order to feel strongly about something. And when we feel strongly, we feel more alive, and the ego is heartily fed. This, in turn, brings in the clicks, the cash, and votes for leftists.

Now, this racism charge that is being leveled is totally unfounded. Seems the complainant’s basis for the charge is her religion (Islam) and her nationality (Pakistani). This seems like grade-school stuff, but it apparently bears repeating: RELIGION IS NOT RACE. So that half of the complainant’s argument is gone. What’s the other half of her argument in support of the AA employee being racist? That the complainant is Pakistani. That’s a nationality, which is also not a race. Interestingly, the complainant may be interested to learn that peoples of the Indian subcontinent tend to be racially classified as, (gasp!) Caucasian. Based on the complainant’s arguments, we can rule out racism as the cause for removal from the aircraft. Still, I doubt we will soon see any reduction in knee-jerk racism claims. It’s the feelings evoked by the gravity of the charge that counts, after all (to come full circle). After all, claiming “religious discrimination” just doesn’t pack the same emotional punch as claiming “racism!”

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Mser August 7, 2016 - 9:57 am

Get a grip. Look at those two women. Roger the FA said he felt “threatened”. They are both petite. No adult male would feel threatened by either of those women. So what is the actual complaint about? Their skin color and their ethnicity (which in Duhmurika always means Muslim) and that they dared to complain about horrible treatment.

Are the women playing up their ethnicity and religion? Probably. But if asking for more than a pretzels and a glass of water after 5 hrs sitting in a stuffy plane makes people troublemakers, then we have a huge problem. Add in the current hysteria fomented by racists like Drumf and we can expect this abuse to continue.

The FA should be fired and the rest of the crew disciplined for allowing the FA to lie to get rid of the two “threats”. This crap needs to stop.

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Anne August 7, 2016 - 11:51 am

the so called race is no longer biologically defined in general terms unless u want to get real technical. racists are those people who hate people based on their “race” which is based on their color. racists seem to have problem with these people of color because of mostly in this and jewish people’s case because of their religious background. hence, so called racists!! but you would never understand this because u must be a white male who has never had to go through discrimination ( other than maybe self perceived) because u have had the fortune of being born a male and white

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JasonD August 6, 2016 - 8:26 am

You’ve got more angry racist followers than I would have expected, Eric. These are the same responses you hear when an unarmed black man laying down in the street gets shot by a cop.

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caitlin finnegan August 6, 2016 - 2:33 pm

Noted & agreed

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Bob D August 7, 2016 - 10:57 am

You are amazing…. You can tell an angry racist from a couple of comments. Analyzing your comments the unarmed black man is your hero whereas the villainous cop’s race does not matter. Interesting and you feel you are not racist?

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Anne August 7, 2016 - 11:46 am

u are basing ur assumption on the “fact” that the commentator is a black person ?? and, yes we can tell who is a racist based on their comments. typing on a computer while remaining anonymous seems to do that to people

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Bob D August 7, 2016 - 5:20 pm

I have no assumption of the race of “commentator” and it makes no difference anyway. That was a real stretch. Maybe you assume that he or she is black, I was just pointing out what he/she wrote. We are all the same race while behind the computer, and perhaps anonymity saves lives. If you don’t agree with me you will attack me. So yes anonymous is good. Defining someone as racist has become a modern day witch hunt.

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mike murphy August 6, 2016 - 8:37 am

Wes

something missing in the assessment

“2 Muslim women (who are American citizens)”

were they claiming to be Pakistani ?

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