Back on Jan. 5, eight Black men who boarded an American Airlines (AAL) flight from Phoenix to New York were approached by an employee who reportedly told them they needed to disembark because there was a complaint of body odor.
The incident, which three of the affected men say was an act of "blatant and egregious racial discrimination" and filed in New York's federal courts on May 29, will now be heard by a judge.
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In the lawsuit, plaintiffs Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph and Xavier Veal say they did not know each other and were all sitting in different parts of the plane but were for some reason singled out and told to leave by the American Airlines staff.
'Hit all these trigger points of things that shouldn't happen to Black people anymore'
"Being grouped and removed hits all these trigger points of things that I don't think should happen to Black people anymore," Jackson, 27, told NBC News.
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He also added that the embarrassment of being led out of the plane and having other passengers overhear the body odor comment was deeply upsetting and will follow him on future experiences flying.
"When I do get on a plane again, it's going to be something that haunts me," Jackson said. The wording of the lawsuit also describes the incident as "traumatic, upsetting, scary, humiliating, and degrading."
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This is how American Airlines responded to the racial discrimination lawsuit
In response to press questions, American Airlines said that it was investigating the claims it says "do not reflect our core values or our purpose of caring for people."
"We take all claims of discrimination very seriously and want our customers to have a positive experience when they choose to fly with us, the airline said further. But the lawsuit is already bringing very bad publicity to the airline due to suspicious circumstances of pulling aside eight separate men of the same race sitting in different parts of the plane. All eight were rebooked on flights later that day but reportedly only after bringing up that they felt discriminated against.
"If American Airlines received a complaint about a Black male passenger with offensive body odor but could not verify the complaint, the solution should not have been to eject eight separate Black men from the plane," Susan Huhta, who is the employment law attorney representing the three men in the lawsuit, said in a statement.
The lawsuit also draws attention to the fact that, in 2017, the NAACP released a travel advisory warning Black passengers about traveling with American Airlines. The civil rights organizations named a number of incidents in which Black passengers were needlessly asked to switch seats or were removed from flights in a wider atmosphere that it says "suggests a corporate culture of racial insensitivity and possible racial bias."
When the report came out, then-CEO Doug Parker released similar statements that the airline "does not tolerate discrimination of any kind" and that the airline wants to "fly over borders, walls and stereotypes to connect people from different races, religions, nationalities, economic backgrounds and sexual orientation."
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