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A woman took to TikTok to claim Delta Airlines kicked her off a flight Sunday after she told flight attendants she has a nut allergy.
“I was literally on the plane and they escorted me off,” Ellie Brelis, 29, tearfully said in a video. “I don’t know what I did and the person at the gate right now is saying I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Brelis had traveled from her home Boston to Los Angeles last week. During the flight, she said she went into an anaphylactic shock that was milder than others she’d previously experienced. Then as she tried to return home, she was booted from the flight, she claimed in the video.
“It was handled really poorly. I felt really embarrassed,” she said in one of her videos. In an effort to avoid that situation a second time, the actor said she upgraded her seat and tried to inform flight attendants about her situation before takeoff.
“I’ve done everything I can think of,” Brelis continued. “Should I have not said I have an allergy?”
The Independent has emailed Delta Airlines for comment. The airline requests passengers notify them of any allergies prior to boarding by filling out a form or calling their accessibility services team.
Food allergies are considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act and airlines are required by law to make accommodations for passengers with disabilities.
Delta attendants arranged for Brelis to fly on the airline’s redeye flight to Boston that evening.
She said she had been given an aisle seat but attendants told her it was a full flight and they couldn’t guarantee her safety. They would need to call med-air and have a doctor determine she is “fit to fly,” she said. The wait required her to be at the airport for up to five hours, where she was unable to eat the food, Brelis added.
She had hoped to get to Boston for a 10am doctor’s appointment she’d scheduled to “figure out why this keeps happening” and other “serious health issues right now.”
In one video, she captured the plane leaving the gate with her checked bag on board.
“That was the plane I was supposed to be on,” she said.
This article has been amended to provide the correct date of the flight and accurate account of what Brelis claims she told the flight crew.
