An airline passenger whose pro-Trump rant on board a flight earlier this month was caught on video has been banned from flying Delta Air Lines for life, the airline’s chief executive told employees in a memo Monday.
The man was on a Nov. 22 flight from Atlanta to Allentown, Pa., when he began shouting his support for the president-elect.
“We got some Hillary bitches on here?” the man shouts in the video.
“Come on, baby!” he continues. “Trump! That’s what I’m talking about. Hey, baby! Donald Trump! He’s your president, every [expletive] one of [you]. If you don’t like it, too bad.”
The Washington Post reports that the man was allowed to remain on the flight, but Delta later apologized for the incident.
On Saturday the company issued a statement that read: “We are sorry to our customers who experienced this disruption. We have followed up with the teams involved, and all agree that this customer should not have been allowed to continue on the flight.”
The statement continued: “Our responsibility for ensuring all customers feel safe and comfortable with Delta includes requiring civil behavior from everyone. The behavior we see in this video does not square with our training or culture, and followup will continue so we can better ensure our employees will know they will be fully supported to make the right decisions when these issues arise.”
In an internal memo sent to Delta employees Monday, the company’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said that the man “will never again be allowed on a Delta plane.”
“This individual displayed behavior that was loud, rude and disrespectful to his fellow customers,” Bastian wrote. “After questioning the customer, our team members made the best decision they could given the information they had and allowed him to remain on the flight. However, if our colleagues had witnessed firsthand what was shown in the video, there is no question they would have removed him from the aircraft.”
Bastian said Delta will refund passengers on the flight the full cost of their tickets, and he wanted employees to know that Delta has their backs.
“The heightened tension in our society means that now more than ever we must require civility on our planes and in our facilities,” he wrote. “We must stay true to Delta’s core values and treat one another with dignity and respect. We also must remain committed more than ever to the safety of our customers and our crew members. We will not tolerate anything less.”
Read more at the Washington Post.