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NAACP Warns Blacks About Flying With American Airlines

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If you are planning a trip soon or already have a flight booked with American Airlines, NAACP wants all African Americans to use caution.  In a travel advisory released on October 24th, NAACP sites various complaints received from black travelers that led them to believe that American Airlines has “a corporate culture of racial insensitivity.”

Part of the statement reads, “The NAACP for several months now has been monitoring a pattern of disturbing incidents reported by African-American passengers, specific to American Airlines. In light of these confrontations, we have today taken the action of issuing national advisory alerting travelers—especially African Americans—to exercise caution, in that booking and boarding flights on American Airlines could subject them disrespectful, discriminatory or unsafe conditions. This travel advisory is in effect beginning today, October 24, 2017, until further notice.”

The four incidents sited in the statement are the following :

  1. An African-American man was required to relinquish his purchased seats aboard a flight from Washington, D.C. to Raleigh-Durham, merely because he responded to disrespectful and discriminatory comments directed toward him by two unruly white passengers;
  2. Despite having previously booked first-class tickets for herself and a traveling companion, an African-American woman’s seating assignment was switched to the coach section at the ticket counter, while her white companion remained assigned to a first-class seat;
  3. On a flight bound for New York from Miami, the pilot directed that an African-American woman be removed from the flight when she complained to the gate agent about having her seating assignment changed without her consent; and
  4. An African-American woman and her infant child were removed from a flight from Atlanta to New York City when the woman (incidentally a Harvard Law School student) asked that her stroller be retrieved from checked baggage before she would disembark.

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According to CNN, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker has responded in a memo to staff saying he was “disappointed” to hear about the NAACP warning.  He added, “We fly over borders, walls and stereotypes to connect people from different races, religions, nationalities, economic backgrounds and sexual orientations.”

American Airlines has reached out to have a meeting with the leadership of NAACP. Read the full press release here.

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