Testing the response of the air crew.
Via USA Today:
Nazia Ali had removed her sneakers, finished sending a text message to her parents and was putting on headphones and settling into her seat for the nine-hour flight from Paris to Cincinnati when a Delta Air Lines crew member approached her and her husband, Faisal.
They were excited to come home July 26 to see their three young sons following a 10th-anniversary trip to London and Paris, “the city of romance and love,” he said.
What happened next would overshadow the good times they’d enjoyed: A flight crew member had complained to the pilot that she was uncomfortable with the Muslim couple in the second row of economy class. The woman was wearing a head scarf and using a phone, and the man was sweating, she allegedly told the pilot.
The pilot contacted the ground crew. He would not take off until couple was removed.
“We had been in our seats for 45 minutes,” Nazia Ali, 34, said Thursday from the Cincinnati area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). “The ground agent said, `Can you step out with me? We’d like to ask you a few questions.’ So I said, `Do you want us to get our things?’ And he said, `Yes, please grab all of your personal belongings. You’re not going to be on this flight.’ ”
In the wake of the couple’s removal from the flight, the Muslim advocacy group filed a religious profiling complaint against Delta Air Lines to the U.S. Department of Transportation.[…]
Shortly thereafter, Delta Air Lines released a statement: “Delta condemns discrimination toward our customers in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or gender. As a global airline that brings hundreds of thousands of people together every day, Delta is deeply committed to treating all of our customers with respect. Delta continues its investigation into this matter and will issue a full refund of these customers’ airfare.”
The flight attendant claimed that Faisal Ali tried to hide his cell phone and that she had heard the couple use the word “Allah.” Allah is the Arabic word for God.