Ryanair faces boycott for mishandling racist attack
Ryanair is facing criticism after a video of a man yelling racist abuse at an elderly black woman has gone viral.
David Lawrence told the Huffington Post he filmed the video last Thursday on a flight from Barcelona to Stansted Airport in London.
In the video, a white man is seen causing a disruption because he doesn’t want to sit next to an elderly black woman.
The man called her an “ugly black bastard” and can be heard saying “Don’t talk to me in a foreign language, you stupid ugly cow!”
A flight attendant tried to calm the situation by offering the woman a seat somewhere else, but she refused.
At one point in the footage, the man even threatens her with violence.
“I’ll tell you this, if you don’t go to another seat, I’ll put you in another seat,” he can be heard saying.
According to the Huffington Post, the woman eventually asked if she could sit with her daughter who was seated elsewhere on the plane.
Many have since criticised the airline staff for not kicking the man off the plane and for asking the woman to move instead of him.
Several members of British and Scottish Parliament have taken to Twitter to urge the airline to report the man to the police.
“He should have been removed from the flight and handed over to the police,” MP Karl Turner tweeted. “We assume the aircraft was in the UK. If it was, he definitely committed criminal offences.”
He should have been removed from the flight and handed over to the police. We assume the aircraft was in the UK. If it was, he definitely committed criminal offences. I fully expect @Ryanair to confirm the situation if In fact it was their flight? https://t.co/ORfww9ZiPg
— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) October 21, 2018
The airline said in a statement it has “reported this to the police in Essex and as this is now a
police matter, we cannot comment further,” according to the Huffington Post.
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