SFO passenger deplaned from Delta flight due to T-shirt
A Bay Area passenger was forced to deplane from a Delta Air Lines flight and change clothes after a flight attendant took issue with her T-shirt.
On Oct. 16, Catherine Banks, a Marine Corps veteran, was asked to get off her flight, which was departing out of
San Francisco International Airport. Once she exited the plane, the flight attendant explained that Banks needed to change because her shirt was “threatening,” Banks told
NBC Bay Area (KNTV). It featured a message about veteran suicide rates in the U.S.
“Do not give in to the war within,” the shirt read. “End veteran suicide.”
Banks said that after informing the flight attendant of her service, she was still forced to change on the jet bridge and had to turn her back away from the flight attendant because she wasn’t wearing a bra.
“I said, ‘Are you kidding me? I’m a Marine Corps vet. I’m going to see my Marine sister. I’ve been in the Marine Corps for 22 years and worked for the Air Force for 15 years. I’m going to visit her,’” Banks said. “He said, ‘I don’t care about your service, and I don’t care about her service. The only way you’re going to get back on the plane is if you take it off right now.’”
Banks also said that when she got back on the plane, she was forced to sit in the back instead of sitting in the seat she had paid for, which had extra legroom.
Veteran suicides are at an all-time high, according to United Service Organizations.
“In 2021, research found that 30,177 active duty personnel and veterans who served in the military after 9/11 have died by suicide — compared to the 7,057 service members killed in combat in those same 20 years,”
the organization wrote on its website.
Banks’ shirt is
sold by Til Valhalla Project, which honors soldiers by raising funds for families to receive memorial plaques after their loved ones die and to help pay for therapy for struggling veterans.
Delta Air Lines’
Contract of Carriage states it can remove passengers from a flight if “the passenger’s conduct, attire, hygiene or odor creates an unreasonable risk of offense or annoyance to other passengers.”
“Delta is seeking to make contact with the customer directly to hear more so we can begin to look into what occurred,” a spokesperson for the airline told SFGATE in an email.
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/sfo-passenger-deplaned-delta-flight-due-to-shirt-19847128.php
