Passenger Says American Airlines Called Police On Her For ‘Flying Fat And Black’

Nationwide — After a recent 45-minute flight from Raleigh-Durham to Washington, DC, an American Airlines flight attendant reportedly called the police after a white passenger complained about the Black woman sitting next to her. That Black woman was Amber Phillips, a writer and podcaster, who says that the woman beside her was upset because her arm inadvertently touched her.

Amber, who admits she’s a bit overweight, says that they were on a very small aircraft and that the seats were very close together. But she also says that the woman was overreacting.

She comments, “She kept being very aggressive and finally goes, ‘Can you move over?’” Amber said she tried to do her best, but there was nothing she could do so she just decided to fold her hand in her lap. She also decided to videotape how the woman was reacting because she felt that she was trying to humiliate her on the flight.

But once they landed, Amber says she was confronted by airport police who informed her that they would be investigating “the incident” as an assault. She, however, was not charged or arrested.

But the experience made her so upset that she talked about it on her Black Joy Mixtape podcast, and documented her experience as “flying while fat and black.”

Watch the live footage below: