Ryanair flight: a "racially abused passenger" referred to police

Ryanair has been criticized for apparently failing to take a passenger out of a flight after being the victim of racial abuse with regard to a 70 year old woman.

The incident, on a Barcelona-Stansted flight on Friday, was recorded by a passenger and shared on social networks.

Many people have said that Ryanair should have removed the man from the flight and threaten to boycott the airline.

Ryanair has stated that she "will not tolerate unruly behavior like this".

He returned the case to the police of Essex.

& # 39; Strong & aggressive & # 39;

In the movie – viewed more than 1.8 million times on Facebook – we can hear that the man was a racist aggressor against the woman and threatened to "push" her to another seat.

He also shouts: "Do not talk to me in a foreign language, you ugly cow bastard."

After the intervention of a flight attendant, the woman says that she wants to sit with her daughter and tell the man that he "stinks". She says about the passenger: "Kick it out".

Her daughter told The Huffington Post that the dispute had begun because her 77-year-old mother was suffering from arthritis and that it had taken her a while to get her to sleep. away from the road so that the man can sit in his place.

David Lawrence, who filmed what happened, told BBC Radio 5 Live: "It was all calm, we were getting ready to take off, and then a man came aboard and came to his seat and spoke very hard to a woman sitting at the driveway seat.

"That's what caught my attention because it was very noisy and very aggressive." He started screaming at the woman saying, "get away," "move your feet," "you should not be sitting here. "

Mr. Lawrence stated that none of the participants initially came. The woman's daughter, who was sitting elsewhere, arrived and "an argument has begun," he said.

"He passed in front of the woman and went to sit down," he said, adding that the video's content was then unveiled, describing it as "the most important exchange." disgusting of offensive language and foul language ".

The woman's daughter said that she had taken her mother, a generation migrant girl from the United States, who came from Jamaica to the United Kingdom in the 1960s, on vacation to mark the first anniversary of her husband's death.

She told the Huffington Post: "I know if I behaved this way – or any other black person, the police would have been called and we would have been fired from the robbery."

She added: "Mom feels really upset and very stressed by this situation, in addition to the grief she's already experiencing.For me, I'm also upset by the fact that the passenger has not been abducted from the plane and how the situation was handled.

"Horrible situation"

A young man, sitting in the row behind the people filmed in the video, stepped in asking the screaming man to stop. He was commended for his actions.

A Ryanair employee says to the man: "Do not be so rude, you have to calm down." He then tells the older man that he will hand over the incident to his supervisor, to which the man replies, "I'm fine."

"I'm so shocked," said Lawrence. "There was no answer [from most other passengers]. Nobody said anything. The young man who really intervened (…) was forced to take a step forward. "

Mr. Lawrence said the situation was "horrible, horrible" and that he had been "shocked" that Ryanair "had allowed such a thing just to do nothing".

BBC presenter Jeremy Vine said the incident was "foolish", saying Ryanair "needs to explain how this racial and disgusting abuse of the black lady sitting next to him ends up asking him to move."

The Ghost Transport Minister, Karl Turner, was among those who tweeted about the incident, saying it would raise "the tendency of airlines to ignore this kind of behavior".

He also stated "that he should have been removed from the robbery and handed over to the police".

Critics of the incident and how it was handled said that the man should have been abducted, instead of the woman moving her own seats.

Ryanair told the BBC: "We apply strict guidelines to disruptive passengers and we will not tolerate such unruly behavior as this one.

"We will push this matter further and disruptive or abusive behavior will result in the ban on passengers traveling."

The Essex police said on Sunday: "This incident, of which we were informed this morning, allegedly took place on a plane at Barcelona airport.

"The Essex police take crime-related bias seriously and we wish all incidents to be reported.We are working closely with Ryanair and the Spanish authorities in connection with the investigation."

He asked anyone with information to call 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, at 0800 555 111.