Black Montreal family allegedly ordered off Air Canada flight taking legal action
Written by rasco on August 29, 2023
Nine members of a Black family are taking legal action against Air Canada after allegedly being ordered off their plane in Montreal.
The Montreal family boarded a flight at Trudeau airport on July 28 – heading to Orlando, Fla. to then take a cruise from Tampa – when the pilot announced luggage would be left behind because the plane was overweight.
The father, Keith Wright, and one of the daughters say they raised concerns about their luggage not being loaded on the plane.
The family alleges they were then ordered off the plane without explanation, at which point they were met by at least five law enforcement officers.
“When I got off the plane and saw the six, the five police officers, I was like, what really is going on here?” said Wright. “This is beyond exaggeration. This is beyond anything that I could comprehend happening, because there was never any shouting, there was no swearing, there was no touching, there was no physical abuse. There was nothing at all. It was just a question about service.
“Being the father and the leader in the family, it really made me extremely sad and frustrated that we had to experience this.”
One of Wright’s daughters, Jodi Smith-Wright, says everything happened quickly.
“It went from asking a question to ‘get off of a plane,’” said Jodi. “So it didn’t make any sense. But that’s what their solution was when they said we’re going back to the gate.”
Another daughter, Kelsey Smith-Wright, believes it was a clear case of racial profiling because of how her father was described.
“I heard the flight attendant describe him as ‘big, Black,’” she recounted. “No other description. She could have said tall, Black male, beard, something – just ‘big, Black,’ literally just like that. So for me, it was like, ‘wow, we’re being racially profiled here right now and we’re being targeted.’”
The family is now filing complaints of consumer racial profiling.
The Center for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR) will be filing the complaints with the family to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
“Whatever they think is a security issue was, we don’t know,” said CRARR executive director Fo Niemi. “It is up to Air Canada to eventually explain, not only to the public, but also to the family and eventually to the authority as to why they decided to kick everybody off the plane. Especially they didn’t do anything to warrant such a drastic and draconian action.
“And that is very publicly humiliating as well, because they have to do it in front of all the other passengers on the plane.”
Air Canada calling it a safety matter
Air Canada confirmed to CityNews the group was removed from the plane following what the airline calls “an incident onboard the aircraft.”
“These actions were taken only for the safety and well-being of our other customers and crew,” Christophe Hennebelle, vice-president of corporate communications, said via email. “Should a complaint on this matter be filed with the competent authorities, we will take the opportunity at that time to explain our decision.”
Hennebelle says the company will not discuss publicly what led to the decision to remove the family from the flight as “we deal with our customers directly.”
Kelsey Smith-Wright is hoping there will be repercussions for those involved.
“I’m hoping that there’s a federal investigation and Air Canada get sanctioned, maybe even suspension of the staff who decided for us that we were all going to be expelled off the plane,” she said.
The post Black Montreal family allegedly ordered off Air Canada flight taking legal action appeared first on CityNews Montreal.
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