RyanAir faces backlash over handling of racial incident

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RyanAir, the discount European airline, is facing calls for a boycott after video surfaced on Facebook of a flight crew failing to intervene in a racially charged incident before a flight from Barcelona, Spain.

The New York Times reported:

From his window seat on a Ryanair flight set to take off for London, the white man berated and bullied an elderly black passenger, loudly ordering her to move out of his way, and making racist comments about her appearance and her accent.

He called her a “stupid, ugly cow” and an “ugly black bastard,” and told her not to speak to him in a “foreign language,” though the Jamaican-born woman was speaking English.

But flight attendants did not usher him to a different seat or off the plane. Instead, with a cellphone camera recording, the woman was forced to move as the man threatened to push her. The flight soon took off from Barcelona, Spain, without the man apparently facing any consequences.

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Another passenger shared video of the incident on Facebook with the hashtags #racist and #whiteprivilege.

The video has over 4 million views and was picked up by major news outlets around the globe.

The backlash centers on what many see as the crew’s failure to remove the male passenger from the flight—and even from his seat.

The Guardian wrote:

The woman’s 53-year-old daughter told the Huffington Post that they were returning from a holiday designed to cheer her mother up, a year after the death of her father.

The argument started because her mother – a member of the Windrush generation who came to the UK in the 1960s – has arthritis so it took her some time to move out of the way so the man could reach the window seat.

“I know that if I was behaving like he was, or any other black person for that matter, police would have been called and we would have been kicked off the flight,” she said.

“Mum’s really feeling upset and very stressed about this situation, on top of the grief she’s already experiencing. As for me, I’m upset about the whole thing too – the fact that the passenger wasn’t taken off the plane and how the situation was dealt with,” she said.

The incident spread to Twitter, with lawmakers and others calling for a boycott:

Ok boycott ⁦@Ryanair⁩ if they think it’s ok for a racist man to abuse an elderly black woman and remain on the plane. It’s 63 years since Rosa Parks said “No “ to sitting on the back of the Bus and we ain’t going back. https://t.co/IYczabgjMJ

— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) October 21, 2018

RyanAir shared a very brief statement, even for Twitter:

Statement: We are aware of this video and have reported this matter to Essex Police

— Ryanair (@Ryanair) October 21, 2018

The statement doesn’t hold water for some:

Such a lazily written response. “Yeah we acknowledge what happened, Happy now?”

You need a new PR department, at least try to fake your disgust at the incident, i.e. “we do not condone any form of racism etc”.

Ah forget it...

— Shemley (@ShemleyGordon) October 21, 2018

Others promise to use another air carrier for their travel:

Not flying #Ryanair ever again. They protect and support racism

— Om Namõ (@shyonnu) October 21, 2018

The video shows the continued exposure for companies where employee interactions can be recorded and shared on social media. Briton David Lawrence, who shot the video, shared why he was prompted to upload the material to Facebook.

The San Francisco Chronicle wrote:

"I thought the flight attendant was going to call someone and escort the man off the flight," Lawrence told The Post. "They moved the woman instead of moving him. That was shocking to me. "

He decided to upload his video to Facebook the following day out of frustration.

"It was just so disturbing," Lawrence said. "Because there was no response from the other passengers on the flight at the time, I thought, OK, well, somebody needs to know what happened here. That's why I kept the video running and captured as much as I could."

PR Daily readers, what do you think of RyanAir’s response, both in real time and afterward?

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