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American Airlines accused of racial bias over ‘African American service fee’
American Airlines is investigating what it calls a ‘disturbing’ case of racial profiling.
A couple from North Carolina who had recently flown with American were annoyed to find an ‘African American service charge’ from the airline on a bank statement.
"Over Thanksgiving, my boyfriend and I traveled from Charlotte to Denver with American, but I had no idea the trip would be ruined due to racial profiling and bias," Kyetra Bryant wrote in a Facebook post.
Bryant says she has been given the runaround by both the airline and bank since then.
"The customer alerted American to the offensively labeled baggage fee on her bank statement in mid-December. We were disturbed by what we saw and immediately launched an investigation to understand what occurred," an airline spokesperson told Fox News.
"Our team members are unable to change text when pwrocessing a charge and we’ve determined the issue originated with the credit card company and bank issuer. We reached out to Mastercard who confirmed that American submitted the baggage fee information correctly."
Mastercard is conducting its own probe into the matter.
"There’s really no justification. We definitely felt targeted. That’s an instance of racial bias," Byant said.
Written by Ray Montgomery, US Editor
TravelMole Editorial Team
Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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