Alaska Airlines bans 14 passengers for ‘rowdy’ behaviour on DC flight after Capitol riots

On January 10, Alaska Airlines banned more than a dozen passengers returning from Washington DC post-Capitol building riots for violation of the health safety protocols as they refused to wear face masks and for 'rowdy' behaviour onboard the plane. At least 14 were banned from travelling on the air carrier after reports of harassment of crew members on the plane preparing to fly out of Washington, DC, emerged. According to Fox News, the flight steward called the behaviour of the mob 'unacceptable'. "Last night, a number of passengers on board Alaska Airlines Flight 1085 from Washington Dulles to Seattle were non-mask compliant and harassed our crew members,” the airlines said in a statement.

Furthermore, Alaska airlines informed that it banned all responsible members from flying with the airlines in the future, for their unruly actions. “We will not tolerate any disturbance onboard our aircraft or at any of the airports, we serve,” the air carrier said. According to sources of Fox  News, the airlines is now attempting to establish if the group of anti-maskers was involved in the US Capitol riots. President of the Association of Flight Attendants, Sara Nelson, however, alleged that the crowd must be blacklisted from flying after the chaos.

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Beefed up security

"The recent ban jumps the list of banned people on Alaska to 288 people. "The airlines were concerned about in-flight disturbances following the riots and a handful of in-flight incidents on flights to Washington for the protests and beefed up security starting Thursday as protesters headed home,” agency ANI quoted the carrier as saying. "Non-mask compliant, rowdy, argumentative’' passengers were on Alaska Flight 1085, which left the US Capital's Dulles International Airport around 5:20 pm (local time). 

"Their behavior was unacceptable,'' airline spokesman Ray Lane said in a statement, accessed by ANI. "We apologise to our other guests who were made uncomfortable on the flight. We will not tolerate any disturbance onboard our aircraft or at any of the airports we serve,” she added. 

Pilot threatens to 'dump' pro-Trump mob 

Earlier, last week, a pilot threatened that he would land the American Airlines plane in the middle of Kansas and dump 'USA' chanting pro-Trump passengers if they did not ‘behave’ on the flight. Footage of the passengers that emerged online showed a large group of people, many of whom were maskless, fist-pumping and yelling 'USA! USA!’ and ‘fight for Trump’ on board the DC plane bound for Phoenix. Eventually,  the airlines pilot becomes fed up and announced, blaring over the loudspeaker: ‘If this is the way it’s gonna be, it’s a four-and-a-half-hour flight to Phoenix. We’ll put this plane down in the middle of Kansas and dump people off – I don’t care. We will do that if that’s what it takes. So behave, please." 

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(Image Credit: Instagram/Alaska Airline)