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Flying while Muslim is a sardonic description of problems that Muslim passengers have faced on airplanes, during stopovers, or at airports in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. It is a snowclone inspired by "driving while black", which similarly satirizes racial profiling of African Americans by police and other law enforcement. [1] [2]
An early usage of the phrase is dated mid-September 2001. [3]
The issue was brought to media attention in 2006 when six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight after they allegedly engaged in suspicious behavior reminiscent of that of the 9/11 hijackers. [4] [5]
In 2009, AirTran Airways removed nine Muslim passengers, including three children, from a flight and turned them over to the FBI after one of the men commented to another that they were sitting right next to the engines and wondered aloud where the safest place to sit on the plane was. Although the FBI subsequently cleared the passengers and called the incident a "misunderstanding", AirTran refused to seat the passengers on another flight, forcing them to purchase last minute tickets on another airline that had been secured with the FBI's assistance. A spokesman for AirTran initially defended the airline's actions and said they would not reimburse the passengers for the cost of the new tickets. Although the men had traditional beards and the women headscarves, AirTran denied that their actions were based on the passengers' appearance. [6] The following day, after the incident received widespread media coverage, AirTran reversed its position and issued a public apology, adding that it would in fact reimburse the passengers for the cost of their rebooked tickets. [7]
On March 13, 2011, a Pakistani American hijabi woman was removed from a Southwest Airlines flight due to a crew member mishearing her say "It's a go" on her cellphone when she actually said "I have to go" in reference to the woman's flight takeoff. After being cleared to return, the pilot refused to let her in the flight, saying that her presence made the crew members uncomfortable. The woman was given a voucher and placed on the next flight. [8]
On November 18, 2015, in two separate incidents, passengers at Midway Airport were allegedly not permitted to fly aboard Southwest Airlines flights when other passengers claimed to be afraid to fly with them because they were speaking Arabic, or appeared to be Muslim. The refusal sparked widespread condemnation on the airline's social media pages and received prominent coverage, in the US and internationally, accompanied by calls for a boycott of the airline. [9] According to The Economist , "in the two Southwest cases, it was the passengers themselves conducting their own vigilante profiling; the airline was merely bowing to their demands." [10]
On April 6, 2016, Southwest Airlines removed a passenger from a flight at Los Angeles International Airport for speaking Arabic before pushback. [11] [12] The FBI detained the passenger, searched his belongings and questioned him for several hours. [13] A Southwest spokesperson declined to apologize and defended Southwest's decisions by saying "We will not be apologizing for following our obligation to adhere to established procedures". [14] The passenger, Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, an Iraqi refugee, later said that those actions were "playing straight into the rhetoric of the Islamic State—they fall into the trap" and, "That is when I couldn't handle it and my eyes began to water ... the way they searched me and the dogs, the officers, people were watching me and the humiliation made me so afraid because it brought all of these memories back to me. I escaped Iraq because of the war, because of Saddam and what he did to my father." [15] [16]
On April 15, 2016, Southwest removed a Muslim passenger from a flight at Midway Airport after she traded seats with several other passengers. [17] A spokesperson from the Council on American–Islamic Relations called on Southwest to explain their actions and the passenger's husband said "She was humiliated because of her religion and the way she dressed". [18] [19]
Southwest Airlines Co. is an airline based in the United States and the world's largest low-cost carrier. It is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has scheduled service to 121 destinations in the United States and 10 additional countries. As of 2018, Southwest carried more domestic passengers than any other United States airline. It is currently the third largest airline in North America based on passengers flown.
El Al Israel Airlines Ltd., trading as El Al, is the Israeli flag carrier. Since its inaugural flight from Geneva to Tel Aviv in September 1948, the airline has grown to serve over 50 destinations, operating scheduled domestic and international services and cargo flights within Israel, and to Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, and the Far East, from its main base in Ben Gurion Airport.
Vieques Air Link is a small Puerto Rico-based airline that links Vieques with Culebra and mainland Puerto Rico.
Palm Beach International Airport is a public airport in Palm Beach County, Florida, located just west of the city of West Palm Beach, Florida, United States, for which it serves as the primary airport. It is also the primary airport for most of Palm Beach County, serving the suburbs and cities of Wellington, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Jupiter, and Palm Beach Gardens. It is the third busiest airport in the Miami metropolitan area after Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport. The airport is operated by Palm Beach County's Department of Airports. Road access to the airport is direct from I-95, Southern Boulevard, and Congress Avenue. The airport is bordered on the west by Military Trail.
ValuJet Airlines Flight 592 was a regularly scheduled flight from Miami to Atlanta. On May 11, 1996, the ValuJet Airlines McDonnell Douglas DC-9 operating the route crashed into the Everglades about 10 minutes after taking off from Miami as a result of a fire in the cargo compartment caused by mislabeled and improperly stored hazardous cargo. All 110 people on board died. The airline already had a poor safety record before the crash, and the accident brought widespread attention to the airline's problems. The airline was grounded for several months after the accident. When operations resumed, ValuJet was unable to attract the same numbers of customers as it had before the accident. It acquired AirTran in 1997, but the lingering damage to the ValuJet name led ValuJet executives to assume the AirTran name.
Trans World Airlines Flight 847 was a flight from Cairo to San Diego with en route stops in Athens, Rome, Boston, and Los Angeles. On the morning of June 14, 1985, Flight 847 was hijacked shortly after take off from Athens. The hijackers demanded the release of 700 Shia Muslims from Israeli custody and took the plane repeatedly to Beirut and Algiers. Later Western analysis considered them members of the Hezbollah group, an allegation Hezbollah rejects.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1999.
The post-9/11 period is the time after the September 11 attacks, characterized by heightened suspicion of non-Americans in the United States, increased government efforts to address terrorism, and a more aggressive American foreign policy.
Turkish Airlines Flight 1476 (TK1476) was a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-4Y0 flying from Tirana to Istanbul that was hijacked by Hakan Ekinci in Greek airspace on 3 October 2006. Ekinci demanded to go to Rome to speak with the Pope, but Greek and Italian F-16 Fighting Falcon jets intercepted and escorted the aircraft until it landed in Brindisi, Italy. Nobody was harmed, and Ekinci was jailed in Italy while awaiting trial. At first, the hijacking incident was linked with the envisaged visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Turkey, but later, it was ascertained that Ekinci was seeking to request political asylum from Italy. On 4 October, a Turkish Airlines plane was sent to take the other passengers to Istanbul.
On 25 May 2003, a Boeing 727-223 airliner, registered N844AA, was stolen at Quatro de Fevereiro Airport in Luanda, Angola, prompting a worldwide search by law enforcement intelligence agencies in the United States. No trace of the aircraft has since been found.
On November 20, 2006, 6:30 pm, six Muslim imams were removed from US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix, Arizona, at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, because several passengers and crew members became alarmed by what they felt was suspicious behavior. The airline has stated that the captain delayed takeoff and called airport security workers to ask the imams to leave the plane; the men refused, and that the captain then called police. The plane left without the imams on board about three hours later. The imams were arrested, questioned, and then released.
Dallas Love Field is a city-owned public airport 6 miles (9.7 km) northwest of downtown Dallas, Texas. It was Dallas' main airport until 1974 when Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) opened. Love Field covers an area of 1,300 acres (530 ha) at an elevation of 487 feet (148 m) above mean sea level and has two runways.
Adam Mohsin Yehya Saleh is an American YouTuber.
Daallo Airlines Flight 159 was a scheduled international passenger flight operated by Somali-owned Daallo Airlines. On 2 February 2016, an explosion occurred on board the aircraft 20 minutes after it took off from Mogadishu. The aircraft was able to return to the airport safely, with one fatality reported. A subsequent investigation indicated that the explosion was caused by a bomb, detonated in a suicide attack. The Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab later claimed responsibility for the bombing. A total of ten people were convicted in relation to the plot.
On April 9, 2017 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, four paying customers were selected to be involuntarily deplaned from United Express flight 3411 to make room for four deadheading employees. One of these passengers was David Dao, 69, a Vietnamese-American who was injured when he was dragged from the flight by Chicago Department of Aviation security officers. Dao, a pulmonologist, refused to leave his seat when directed because he needed to see patients the following day. In the process of removing him, the security officers struck his face against an armrest, then pulled him – apparently unconscious – by his arms down the aircraft aisle, past rows of onlooking passengers. The incident is widely characterized by critics – and later by United Airlines itself – as an example of mishandled customer service.
Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 was a Boeing 737-700 that experienced a contained engine failure in the left CFM56-7B engine after departing from New York–LaGuardia Airport en route to Dallas Love Field on April 17, 2018. The engine cowl was broken in the failure and cowl fragments damaged the fuselage, causing explosive depressurization of the aircraft after damaging a cabin window. Other fragments caused damage to the wing. The crew carried out an emergency descent and diverted to Philadelphia International Airport. One passenger was partially ejected from the aircraft and sustained fatal injuries, while eight other passengers sustained minor injuries. The aircraft was substantially damaged.
I've faced both kinds of profiling: driving while black and flying while Muslim.
