A doctor has accused a Mesa Airlines flight attendant of “humiliating” her over her daughter’s dirty diaper, and then later informing her that she had been placed on a no-fly list as a result of the “biohazard”.
The incident occured Friday, according to Farah Naz Khan, an endocrinologist from Seattle, who was flying on a Mesa Airlines flight, contracted by United Airlines’ express network, from Kalispell, Montana, to Houston, Texas, with her husband and one-year-old daughter.
According to Khan, who described the experience on social media and to NBC News, halfway through the flight, she brought her daughter to the back bathroom of the plane to change the child and dispose of her dirty diaper.
After changing her daughter in the bathroom, Khan said that she then disposed of the diaper in a “scented diaper disposal bag inside the bathroom trash”.
However, upon returning to the front of the plane, Khan said that she was approached by a flight attendant, who “berated” her for throwing the diaper away on the plane on the basis that it was a “biohazard”.
“When I walked back to the front holding my diaper wipes container and, like, the pad that we used to change my daughter’s diaper on, the flight attendant accosted me and said: “Did you just dispose of a diaper back there? That’s a biohazard,’” Khan told NBC News.
According to Khan, she was then encouraged to retrieve the dirty diaper from the garbage, which she told the outlet left her feeling “humiliated” and “belittled”.
The situation reportedly escalated after Khan asked another flight attendant for a garbage bag that she could use to dispose of the diaper, at which point she said she was informed by the second flight attendant that she hadn’t done anything wrong.
However, when the second flight attendant called over the first flight attendant to discuss the matter, Khan said the first man “yelled” at her and said he “didn’t want to deal with me”.
Upon landing, Khan filed a customer service incident report, she told NBC News, adding that she has always disposed of her daughter’s diapers this way when flying.
But, according to Khan, a few hours after landing, she received a phone call from a 1-800 number, which she answered only to find herself speaking with the first flight attendant, who informed her that she had been placed on a no-fly list due to the “biohazard incident”.
“I recognised the voice. He said: ‘Due to a biohazard incident on the plane today, we’ve placed you on the no-fly list.’ This made me very angry, because I suffered the humiliating experience… They are placing me on a no-fly list?” Khan told NBC News. “I also didn’t dispose of the diaper on the plane, even if it was considered a biohazard. I walked it off the plane and threw it away myself outside the flight.”
In a post detailing the experience on Twitter, where she tagged United Airlines, which contracts Mesa Airlines for regional flights, Khan said that the flight attendant also told her during the three-minute call that “you people bring your families everywhere” and referred to her daughter as “obnoxious”.
Khan, who identifies as South Asian Muslim and American, told NBC News that she was unsure what the flight attendant meant by “you people” but said that it sounded derogatory.
In a statement to NBC News, a spokesperson for Mesa Airlines said: “The details as described by our customer do not meet the high standards that Mesa sets for our flight attendants and we are reviewing the matter.”
As of Monday, Khan said that she has been contacted twice by United Airlines, but that both calls have been unhelpful, as the airline reportedly refused to tell her the flight attendant’s name, how he got her number or whether he has been disciplined, according to NBC News.
The Independent has contacted Khan, United Airlines and Mesa Airlines for comment.
