Recent Airline Incident Is “Part of an Alarming Trend”

Hakima Abdulle, a Muslim woman was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight last week because a flight attendant did not “feel comfortable” with her.

Ms. Abdulle was removed from the plane shortly after being told she’s not allowed to swap seats, despite the airline’s unassigned seating policy. The male passenger seated next to her did not object to the seat swap, but the flight attendant did. Ms.Abdulle was asked to get off the plane, with no given explanation until the police stopped the two, and the flight attendant revealed she did not “feel comfortable”.

Ms.Abdulle is of Somalian descent, and was wearing a headscarf the day of the incident, which could have prompted the in-flight staff’s startling decision. Ms.Abdulle later rebooked onto another flight, and claimed she was racially profiled.

Since the incident, Zainab Chaudry of The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has issued an statement, calling for an investigation and a formal apology by Southwest Airlines and a reimbursed airfare for Ms.Abdulle, who “suffered acute distress and anxiety and was publicly humiliated before a plane full of passengers.” She called the incident the latest in “an alarming trend” of racial profiling in US airlines.

A deeper look into recent events show that there indeed have been many similar events recently. Less than 20 days before the incident, Southwest Airlines has removed Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, a UC Berkeley Senior from a plane simply ‘for speaking Arabic’.

‘This is what Islamophobia looks like”, the Iraqi-born researcher told The Guardian.

That same month, United Airlines removed a muslim family ‘for security reasons’ after the family asked for extra strap for their youngest child’s safety seat. 

The mother published 2 videos of the family being kicked off the plane, shaming the airline for their extreme actions.

This has not been the worst incident with alleged racial profiling in US airlines, however. Less than a year ago United Airlines was involved in a public scandal, where airline staff refused a Muslim woman a can of Diet Coke, because it could be ‘used as a weapon’. The woman wrote about the incident on Facebook, add the flight operator Shuttle America has since formally apologized on Facebook.