A Black woman has accused Delta Airlines of booting her to the back of a plane mid-flight for the convenience of two white women.
In a story first reported by ABC7 Bay Area, Camille Henderson described an experience that sounds like it was straight from the Jim Crow era, when Black people were routinely moved to the back of the bus. Henderson said she boarded a Feb. 7 flight by herself from Atlanta to San Francisco. After taking her seat in 15A—a window seat—she said the last two passengers to board the plane had a disagreement with flight attendants over the seating arrangement. The two women, who were white, said they were supposed to have first-class seats due to a phone call they had with a Delta representative, but they did not speak with anyone at the gate before getting on the plane. Physically, they didn’t have first-class tickets. Instead, they had tickets for 15B and C—middle and aisle seats.
“The whole first hour of the flight, as we’re taking off and after being served, they kind of were going back and forth with each other about how much space they don’t have, how inconvenienced they were because they were supposed to have first-class seats,” Henderson said in an interview with The Daily Beast.
Henderson recalled the women, who she said were about in their 50s, called over a flight attendant and tried to explain their seating situation. The flight attendant said that there was nothing he could do if they physically did not have first-class tickets.
The women allegedly called another flight attendant over when the first was unable to help them. The women told him they saw two seats open in first-class and asked if they could move there instead. In audio Henderson recorded, the flight attendant can be heard saying that nothing could be done if the women did not have appropriate tickets.
“Can I call Delta later and make sure they have all of the notes in their system?” one of the women asked.
“Absolutely,” the flight attendant…