A California woman said flight attendants mistreated her after giving up her seat to two white women on a Delta Airlines flight.
Camille Henderson said two flight attendants asked her to move to the back of the plane to make room for two passengers who wanted to change seats for extra space, ABC 7 reported.
Henderson was flying exclusively with the Airline as she was headed back to the Bay Area from Atlanta on Feb. 3.
Though the women wanted to switch to first-class seating, they could not provide their tickets to flight attendants as proof they paid for them.
“They felt like they were ticketed first-class seats, but they couldn’t provide the tickets,” Henderson told the media outlet.
Henderson couldn’t understand why she had to move after paying for her assigned seat in row 15, only to be seated in row 34 at the end of the flight.
The two women, who had the aisle and middle seats and appeared to be flying together, complained to the flight attendants about their seating arrangements for more than an hour. Henderson started recording the conversation as the women continued to argue over their seats.
Henderson shared the recording with ABC 7 between the flight attendant and the two women seated next to her.
“Unfortunately, my first class seats are occupied,” one person said on the recording.
Another responded, “They are what?”
“They’re occupied,” the first person said.
Henderson said the flight attendants had returned with a solution that would resolve the women’s issues, but the California native would have to be the one to move.
In the clip, someone asked her, “Are you flying by yourself?” Henderson can be heard saying that she is, followed by the person saying, “There’s a seat back there in aisle 34. It’s an aisle seat.”
Henderson said the flight attendants failed to ask the women seated next to her to move after they were upset with their seating assignments.
She said she was moved to an aisle seat in row 34 — the last row where passengers were seated per the flight attendant’s request.
“I don’t want to make it a race thing, but instead of asking the two white women that were seated next to me (to move), in an attempt to accommodate them, they basically made me have to move. I just don’t know why I had to move because that was the seat that I paid for. That was my assigned seat,” Henderson said.
Henderson recalled the embarrassing moment as she walked to the back of the plane to find her seat.
“As I’m walking back there, it’s just humiliating. It’s like having the entire flight look at you and asking what’s going on,” she said.
Henderson called the Delta Airlines customer service line to file a complaint regarding her experience with the company. While the outcome wasn’t what she hoped for, Henderson shared the recording with ABC 7 of her and the customer service representative.
“How were you humiliated for them to ask you to go to another seat?” the rep said in the recording.
The rep said there was nothing more they could do for Henderson since she was moved from one main economy seat to another on the flight.
“I just want them to acknowledge that they made me feel powerless, and they can’t do that to customers moving forward,” she said in an interview with ABC7 News.
Delta Airlines released a statement regarding the incident with Henderson.
“We are looking into this situation to better understand what happened. Delta has no tolerance for discrimination in any form, and these allegations run counter to our deeply-held values of respecting and honoring the diversity of our customers.”
Henderson believes the Airline’s statement isn’t going to do much after her experience.
“Me, as a Black woman, I was displaced to make two white women comfortable. That doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.
After the incident, Henderson said she would “never, never again” take another flight with Delta Airlines.
