American Airlines Passenger Falsely Claims To Have Coronavirus, Flight Delayed By 8 Hours

An American Airlines passenger was arrested after he claimed to have coronavirus on the plane. The incident took place at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Texas, on Saturday.

The passenger, identified as 72-year-old George Gjergji, was on the American Airlines flight 1076 that was originally scheduled to take off from Dallas to Nashville on Saturday night. He was removed from the plane and arrested after he had falsely claimed he has coronavirus and caused the flight to get delayed for eight hours.

Gjergji reportedly became agitated after the flight attendant had repeatedly asked him to put his tray table up before the flight’s takeoff. The flight attendant said when she asked for the fourth time, the man had held up a clear plastic bag with medicine stating that he needed to take them and shouted “but I have the coronavirus” twice.

When the attendant alerted the pilot about the situation, the plane returned to the gate. The incident caused the flight to get delayed for nearly eight hours. The flight was scheduled to take off on Saturday night, but instead took off at 3:10 a.m. local time (4:10 a.m. EST) Sunday.

Police officers confirmed that the man was removed from the flight and taken into custody. He was evaluated by emergency medical service officials. The passenger, however, admitted to the police that he was lying after he did not show any symptoms of the virus.

Brandon Kenney, one of the passengers on the flight, told ABC-affiliated television station WKRN that the people were “freaked out” after the incident and had begun to panic.

“People didn’t know if he was actually sick or if he really didn’t have coronavirus or not,” he said adding that, the cops came back and explained the situation after the passenger was escorted off the plane.

“Right after he was escorted off the plane, one of the cops came back and explained the situation to the people that were sitting near him and kind of spelled it out for us and told us not to worry about it and really was just talking about how he was joking about having the coronavirus,” he added.

American Airlines representative Ross Feinstein confirmed the delay was caused due to a disruptive passenger who was arrested.