'Racist' Airline Passenger Allegedly Refused African-American Woman Flight Seat Next To Her

An African-American woman recounted “the worst experience ever” with Spirit Airlines, claiming she was asked to relocate after boarding a flight from Las Vegas to Chicago after another female passenger refused to sit beside a person of color.

The alleged incident was brought up by a Facebook user, who went by the name “Tiarra Tiarra”, in a June 25 post. She said she was forced to opt for an alternate flight after her plane from Detroit was delayed by over 12 hours. She claimed that shortly after the 4-hour-long flight departed at 9:34 a.m. PDT (12:34 p.m. EDT), an unidentified Russian woman refused to sit next to her to the point that she started arguing with the flight attendants over the issue. Tiarra said her race was the reason why the woman refused to sit beside her.

“Luckily there were other [white] people on the plane who chose to switch seats with me so I wouldn’t have to sit by her which she happily allowed. I have never experienced this before. I’m so upset that I couldn’t lay hands on this lady,” Tiarra wrote.

However, switching seats with someone else was not her choice. Tiarra said. “My thing is after refusing to let me sit down the flight attendants should have made her move. I shouldn’t have needed to switch seats to accommodate her choice of what race she wanted next to her and her husband. I had to ask someone to switch seats with me because she didn’t want to sit by a black woman in 2019!!!!” she added.

Tiarra claimed that the crew members praised her for being a “team player” after her decision to switch seats, although according to her, the Russian passenger should have been kicked off the plane simply because she tried to block a seat for herself. After the plane landed, the passenger tried to apologize for the inconvenience she caused Tiarra, which the latter termed “bogus.”

“Her excuse was she thought the plane was already boarded and no one told her that she would have to sit next to anyone. Mind you she allowed the young white college student to sit next to her with no issue. Immediately after we landed she rushed off requesting a supervisor to complain to because the passenger were booing her and calling her a racist. She said her not letting me sit down had nothing to do with me being black but simply because she thought the seat was going to be empty,” Tiarra captioned a short video of the woman’s apology.

The African-American also explained the reason for choosing to keep her calm during the alleged incident and not taking any drastic steps to counter the Russian’s behavior. “I’m so shocked by the messages I’m getting from people calling me a slave, a weak b---- and so many other things because I didn’t beat this woman up. Excuse me for knowing that if I did put hands on this woman I would be in jail, my child would be wondering why I wasn’t home, I could have loss my job, name tarnished all of that because I chose to punch this woman in her face,” she said.

In a statement regarding the incident, Spirit Airlines media relation manager, Derek Dombrowski told Yahoo Lifestyle the company had “launched an investigation into this incident and we have reached out directly to the Guest to address her concerns. Spirit Airlines has zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind on our flights and we pride ourselves on providing an inclusive and safe environment for our Guests.”