Three Black men have filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against American Airlines, claiming they were briefly removed from a flight due to a complaint about body odor. The men, who did not know each other and were not seated together, allege that every Black man on the January 5 flight from Phoenix, Arizona, to New York was removed.
“American Airlines singled us out for being Black, embarrassed us, and humiliated us,” the men said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
The Texas-based airline responded, stating that it is investigating the matter as the allegations do not align with its values.
According to a federal lawsuit filed by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, three Black men were removed from an American Airlines flight due to a complaint about body odor. Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph, and Xavier Veal had already taken their seats on the flight from Phoenix to New York on January 5 when a flight attendant approached each of them, asking them to exit the plane. The men, who did not know each other and were not seated together, allege that they realized “every Black man on the flight was being removed” as they left the aircraft.
Earlier that day, the men had flown from Los Angeles without any issues. At the flight gate, they and five others were informed by an airline agent that they had been removed because a white male flight attendant had complained about an unidentified passenger’s body odor. “There is no explanation other than the color of our skin,” the men stated on Wednesday, calling the incident “clearly racial discrimination.”
Although American Airlines employees attempted to re-book the men on other flights, no other services to New York were available that night. Eventually, the group was allowed to re-board their original flight. In response, American Airlines issued a statement saying, “We take all claims of discrimination very seriously and want our customers to have a positive experience when they choose to fly with us. Our teams are currently investigating the matter, as the claims do not reflect our core values or our purpose of caring for people.”
The lawsuit claims that while the men waited outside the plane, the pilot announced a delay due to an issue with “body odor,” which the plaintiffs say was false. They described feeling “profound embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, anger, and distress” throughout the flight, exacerbated by interactions with the white male flight attendant and the suspicious glances from predominantly white passengers.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for the “trauma” endured by the men. Mr. Joseph compared the experience to Civil Rights hero Rosa Parks being forced to the back of an Alabama bus in 1955, stating, “It’s a strange, crazy story that in 2024 we are still going through stuff like this.” He emphasized that the lawsuit is necessary to ensure American Airlines does not receive merely “a slap on the wrist.”
In 2017, the NAACP issued a travel advisory urging Black Americans to avoid American Airlines due to discrimination, lifting it the following year after the airline announced operational changes.
