- An American Airlines passenger is suing the airline, saying he was racially profiled.
- The complaint says Anthony Williams was falsely accused of trafficking his own wife.
- Williams' lawsuit also highlights similar claims of racial profiling by the airline in 2023 and 2024.
A Black passenger is suing American Airlines, saying he was racially profiled and falsely accused of trafficking his wife on a 2022 flight from Phoenix to Miami.
Former police officer Anthony Williams and Katsiaryna Shasholka, who is white, boarded the flight to Florida for their honeymoon in September 2022.
According to the suit, filed in the Southern Florida District Court, a fellow passenger believed Williams was trafficking his wife, Shasholka, and reported this to American Airlines employees Michael Wilfong and Angel Rodriguez.
The lawsuit says that the employees did not question Williams or conduct any kind of investigation but instead "falsely reported to law enforcement that Plaintiff Anthony was human trafficking his own wife."
When the aircraft landed at Miami International Airport, Williams and Shasholka were "falsely imprisoned" by American Airlines staff who escorted them off the aircraft, the suit says.
The two then waited, "confused and embarrassed," as the other passengers disembarked the plane and walked past them before they were questioned by police officers from the Miami-Dade Police Department, and were "detained, falsely imprisoned, questioned, and humiliated," the suit says.
It says the biracial couple were "racially profiled, and discriminated against based on their race by employees and/or agents of American Airlines, at Miami International Airport."
Williams and Shasholka seek damages in excess of $75,000, not including interests and costs.
The complaint then lists three other instances between 2023 and 2024 in which Black passengers say they were mistreated by American Airlines.
In September 2023, singer-songwriter and guitarist David Ryan Harris — who played in John Mayer's band for two decades — was accused of trafficking his children on an American Airlines flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles.
Harris and two of his sons were met by an airline employee and police officers at the top of the jetway as they were deplaning.
"A flight attendant had called ahead with some sort of concern that his biracial children were not his children, because they were unresponsive during an interaction with her," the lawsuit says.
American Airlines declined to comment when contacted by Business Insider.