American Airlines Allegedly Harassed Country Singer For Diabetes Service Dog

Country music singer RaeLynn accused an American Airlines flight attendant of harassing her when she was carrying a diabetes service dog on the plane Sunday.

RaeLynn, 23, initially expressed her frustration with the following tweet:

Later on, the “Queens Don’t” singer elaborated about her “worst experience” in an interview with Taste of Country. RaeLynn was flying from North Carolina to Maryland to attend a conference where she was scheduled to speak about the disease she suffers from — Type 1 Diabetes — when she was repeatedly harassed by a flight attendant regarding her 85-pound German Shepherd service dog, Jazz, which was traveling with her.

“I’ve never had a minute of trouble. Jazz is trained to know how to lay under the seat of an airplane," she told the publication. "But this airplane was a small regional plane, and before we even took off, the attendant came up to me and told me that I needed to get the dog completely under the seat for takeoff.”

According to RaeLynn, Jazz was used to flying everywhere with her and she had never faced any trouble with flight attendants before the incident on Sunday regarding her dog’s behavior. Jazz detected "when [her] sugar levels aren’t right."

As the singer tried her best to comply with the attendant’s orders, she started sensing that Jazz was not comfortable.

“Jazz immediately started crying as I tried to fit him completely under the seat. I mean, if there had been turbulence, he would have been hurt,” she said.

RaeLynn went onto add that the flight attendant kept on blaming her for not following orders and even took a dig at her dog, doubting the authenticity of its service dog status.

"I did my best to keep (Jazz) there but the flight attendant continued to come to me telling me that I wasn’t being compliant," she told Taste of Home. “I probably heard that word five-thousand times. She then accused Jazz of not being trained and not being a service dog, which obviously is not true.”

RaeLynn understood that there are certain policies of airlines that one is supposed to follow while carrying service dogs during flight, but according to her, the flight attendant stepped over a line in terms of her behavior.

“The flight attendant was being extremely disrespectful. She talked extremely loud and it was such a small plane,” she said.

As soon as American Airlines was made aware of the incident, they reached out to the singer, apologized for the incident.

“We’re sorry that RaeLynn had a bad travel experience with us. Our team is working to gather more information and facts, and our customer relations team has reached out to her directly. Piedmont Airlines, which operated flight 4831 from Charlotte, N.C. to Salisbury-Ocean City, Md., on April 9, is also reviewing these allegations,” the airliner said in a statement to Fox News.

RaeLynn explained the approach she would have taken if she was in the flight attendant’s shoes. “If I was a flight attendant, I certainly would not have made as big of a scene as she did. It could have been something that was discussed once we landed,” she said.