American Airlines’ ‘Odor’ Excuse Reeked of Racism: Lawsuit

Three Black men are suing American Airlines, claiming they were racially targeted during a flight in January when all Black male passengers were allegedly kicked off the flight due to an alleged “offensive body odor.”

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Alvin Jackson, Emmanuel Jean Joseph, and Xavier Veal accused American Airlines of “blatant and egregious race discrimination” during a January flight from Phoenix to New York. According to the complaint, eight men who had already boarded a plane bound for JFK airport—seemingly all of the Black male passengers onboard—were told to exit without an explanation.

When the passengers demanded some sort of reasoning after deplaning, “representatives of American told them that they were ordered off the plane because of a complaint about body odor.” The passengers weren’t personally confronted about any alleged smells but accused the airline of singling out Black men, according to the lawsuit.

At one point while exiting, Joseph told an airline representative that a white male flight attendant had treated him inappropriately “just because of the color of [his] skin,” and the representative agreed, the lawsuit stated.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Joseph said he didn’t know why everyone wasn’t removed from the flight if there was a strange odor. He added that the people who were removed weren’t grouped together and sat in different areas of the plane.

“If I have this strange odor, how are you rebooking me on a different flight? Are you going to ask me to take a bath? Are you going to shower me?” Joseph told The Daily Beast. “Black people have to do this thing where they have to be on their best behavior [when we travel], especially on a flight.”

Joseph said the “overwhelming” experience was as if he had been “gut-punched.”

He and attorney Sue Huhta added that the other five Black men who were forced off the plane were from other countries and there was a language barrier.

“Why [do] people who are not English speaking come into America for the first time and this is the first thing that they get punched in the face with?” Joseph said. “It’s a shame that American Airlines has the name ‘American’ in because it’s something I can’t say that I’d be proud to even call myself.”

The former passengers were told they’d have to get rebooked on other American flights, but ended up getting back on their original plane an hour later after airline employees couldn’t find alternative flights. Meanwhile, the pilot on the original flight told the remaining passengers that there was a delay due to a “concern about body odor.”

According to the lawsuit, the Black male passengers had to reboard the plane and “endure the stares of the largely white passengers who viewed them as the cause of the substantial delay. They suffered during the entire flight home, and the entire incident was traumatic, upsetting, scary, humiliating, and degrading.”

Jackson, Joseph, and Veal want a trial by jury, payment for their pain and suffering, and a punitive ruling to prevent American Airlines from possibly engaging in future racial discrimination against Black passengers.

“The incident did not just inflict immediate distress; it also resurfaced and intensified emotional trauma from past encounters with racism and discrimination,” the lawsuit read. “American’s actions not only revisited these old wounds but also deepened them, exacerbating Plaintiffs’ suffering and sense of alienation.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs nor American Airlines immediately returned The Daily Beast’s request for comment Wednesday.

Joseph says that he has not flown since the flight and compared the experience to the Bus Boycotts during the Civil Rights Movement.

“It might take a while for me to fly again. Because imagine if the plane took off, and we were 1000 2000 feet in the air, and it was me against everyone else. Black people that every day, usually it’s me against the world,” he told The Daily Beast. “[That experience is] going to be something I relive every time I get on a plane. … It’s very much changed the way I travel, and that’s a big issue traveling while Black.”