A woman claims she was asked to get off a Delta Air Lines plane after a flight attendant considered her, “End veteran violence,” T-shirt “threatening.”
Catherine Banks, a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps, was boarding a flight at San Francisco International Airport on Oct. 16, when she was approached by a flight attendant who asked her to disembark.
“A male flight attendant was saying, ‘Ma’am, ma’am.’ I looked around like, ‘Who was he talking to?’ And it was me,” Banks told KNTV.
“He said, ‘You need to get off the plane,’ and I was like, ‘What did I do?’”
After disembarking, she said the flight attendant told her that her shirt “threatening.” The shirt in question said: “Do not give in to the war within. End veteran suicide.”
Banks said she was shocked.
“I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’” she recounted to the outlet.
“I’m a Marine Corps vet. I’m going to see my marine sister. I’ve been in the Marine Corps for 22 years and worked for the air force for 15 years. I’m going to visit her.’
“He said, ‘I don’t care about your service and I don’t care about her service. The only way you’re going to get back on the plane is if you take it off right now.’”
Banks told the outlet she had to turn away from the flight attendant to change shirts because she was not wearing a bra. She added that despite paying for a seat with extra legroom, other flight attendants made her sit in the rear of the plane.
Then, to top things off, the flight was delayed and she missed her connecting flight.
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Banks’ shirt is made by the Til Valhalla Project, which helps provide mental-health treatment and therapy to U.S. veterans, according to SFGate.
“I feel like they just took my soul away,” Banks told KNTV. “I’m not a bad person and that T-shirt, I should be allowed to support myself and veterans.”
Delta has sole discretion to determine whether or not passengers should be removed from a flight “for the passenger’s comfort or safety, for the comfort or safety of other passengers or Delta employees or for the prevention of damage to the property of Delta or its passengers or employees,” according to the airline’s contract of carriage.
Among the conditions that allow flight attendants to remove passengers are “disorderly, abusive or violent” conduct or when the “passenger’s conduct, attire, hygiene or odour creates an unreasonable risk of offence or annoyance to other passengers.”
Banks told the outlet that the airline reached out in an effort to rectify the matter and a Delta spokesperson later confirmed to People that the incident “with the customer has been resolved.
“We appreciate her patience as we continue to work to understand what occurred during this event. Most importantly, we are thankful for her service to our country.”