It’s been reported that an American Airlines crew member had taken 49 year old Swati Runi Goyal to the front of the plane during her flight. While she at first thought she was going to be upgraded to first class, it instead turned out differently. The crew member had told Swati Runi Goyal to either change her shirt or that she’d be kicked off the plane. Reason being? Her shirt had the words “Hail Satan” printed on it.
A woman wearing a “Hail Satan” shirt on an American Airlines flight was told to either change or get off the plane https://t.co/SHsgRXlMVs
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) December 6, 2019
As she explained, Swati Runi Goyal doesn’t actually even worship Satan. According to her, the shirt is ironic.
“It’s an ironic shirt,” Goyal told BuzzFeed News. “People usually laugh at it, or they give me a thumbs up because they understand the meaning behind it.”
She then explained the incident in which she was asked to change her shirt.
“He said, ‘Our crew has found your shirt to be offensive,’” said Goyal. “We initially just thought it was a joke. But he repeated the directive, and there was another female crew member who was behind him with her arms crossed looking very angry.”
Obviously she retaliated against his demands.
“The man said, ‘Your shirt is offensive. Do you know what that means?’” Goyal said. “I said, ‘I’m a foreign-born minority woman, I understand ‘offensive,’ and this shirt is not offensive.’”
While American Airlines does have a statement regarding “offensive clothing” not being allowed, as stated on their website, they don’t indicate what exactly counts as “offensive.” Because of this, it’s up to the crew members to decide what should be considered offensive or not.
As such, the crew continued to tell her to change her shirt or be escorted off the flight. Eventually she took one of her husband’s extra layers of clothing, and because the words were then covered she was left alone. But it turns out the crew still ignored her for the rest of the flight.
“I’m just an ordinary-looking person,” she said. “I’m not goth. I don’t have piercings. I wasn’t wearing a shirt that had a goat being beheaded on it.”
“[I was] wearing L.L.Bean hiking pants and vegan sneakers,” she added. “I mean, I couldn’t look like more of a nerd.”
She then explained that the issue could mean other unfortunate people could be discriminated against if the crew members decide to take advantage of what they consider “offensive.”
“I think the group that could be most targeted by this are Muslim people, for obvious reasons,” she said. “I’m an atheist, but I support people’s rights to practice what they believe peacefully.”
It appears that American Airlines as a whole did not even apologize at first after she made her complaints. She eventually complained about the experience on Twitter and that’s when the company spokesperson Ross Feinstein issued an apology after being contacted by BuzzFeed News.
“We apologize to Ms. Goyal for her experience, and we are reaching out to her to understand what occurred,” Feinstein told BuzzFeed News.
As of this writing it seems that her and her husband’s tickets were refunded, and an investigation is still ongoing regarding the issue.