A racist Ryanair passenger refuses to sit next to an elderly black woman

After a 77-year-old black woman wanted to sit in the same row of an older white male passenger, that passenger became racist, aggressive and violent towards her. The man started yelling to her and used racist insults as “you ugly black bastard“, he even threatened her to push her off her seat if she didn’t move. Several passengers and at least one crew member witnessed the racist rant. Instead of throwing the unruly passenger out of the plane before closing the doors, he was allowed to keep his seat: the flight attendant offered the lady and her daughter another seat in the front of the cabin.

Yesterday (20 October), a video that was uploaded on social media quickly became viral. Lawrence, who uploaded the video on Facebook took to social media to highlight Ryanair “turning a blind eye” to the racial abuse and allowing the man to stay on the plane.

British presenter, journalist and broadcaster Jeremy Vine tweeted: “If this is Ryanair, they need to explain how this man’s disgusting racial abuse of the black lady in the seat next to him ends up with HER being asked to move. It is beyond belief.”

Mark, a British Airways captain says: “Anyone who behaves like this has no place on a crowded airliner with other people. The commander has the absolute right to remove any passenger “prejudicial to the safety and good conduct of the flight”. You can draw your own conclusions as to whether that standard is met.”

Dr Adrian Harrop commented: “Why wasn’t this person removed from the flight? Your crew member witnessed him being racist, aggressive and violent towards another passenger and seemingly did nothing. Imagine how unsafe this made your passengers feel. Disgraceful.”

The incident happened on flight FR9015 from Barcelona to London Stansted on Friday afternoon.

The woman’s daughter said to news site Huffington Post that she will never fly Ryanair again, and she believes that if it had been a black person behaving in that way “police would have been called and we would have been kicked off of the flight.”

Only this morning, Ryanair briefly tweeted: “We are aware of this video and have reported this matter to Essex Police. As this is now a police matter, we cannot comment further.”

Okay then …