Third Southwest flight disrupted citing ‘suspicious behaviour’
A Southwest airlines flight heading to Los Angeles was diverted to Kansas City after three men displayed ‘suspicious behaviour’.
The men did not follow crew’s instructions and swapped seats in the back row of the plane while flight attendants went through the pre-take off briefing.
Reports say that they continued to show suspicious activities during the flight from Indianapolis to Los Angeles.
Police escorted the three men off the plane at Kansas City but they were allowed to continue on later flights after being questioned by the FBI.
It is the third incident this week involving allegations against passengers on Southwest planes, reports the Daily Mail.
Last Wednesday two Palestinian men were briefly stopped from boarding a flight to Philadelphia from Chicago after a traveller overheard them speaking Arabic.
On the same day another Southwest flight from Chicago to Houston was delayed after six Muslim passengers were removed from the plane.
The airline has received criticism via Twitter over reports that it has singled out Muslim or Middle Eastern passengers on flights this week, reports the Guardian.
Some have vowed not to use the low cost carrier, with one tweeting: "Any airline that refuses passengers based on religion or ethnicity should be subject to national boycott."
A spokesman for Southwest Airlines said: "Each event you reference was unique in nature. Passengers were removed from yesterday’s flight to Los Angeles and from Wednesday’s flight to Houston based on their actions alone, failing to follow inflight instruction at some point during their trip.
"Flight 6599 experienced a slight, two-minute delay boarding while our Customer Service Agent completed a brief passenger conversation in the gate area. After the conversation was resolved, all Customers boarded the flight out of Chicago Midway and traveled to their scheduled destination of Philadelphia.
"Southwest welcomes hundreds of millions of customers onboard annually. We are responsible for the comfort of all passengers and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind."
Diane
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