Spirit Airlines suspends agent following an altercation with a passenger who yelled racial and homophobic abuse at him

Sam Tabahriti
Updated ·2 min read
31
A Spirit Airlines Airbus A320 passenger jet taxis at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport
A Spirit Airlines plane at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.Robert Alexander/Getty Images

  • A Spirit Airlines agent has been suspended after an altercation with a passenger at Dallas airport.

  • In a video posted by DTX Daily on Twitter, the agent tells her: "Don't touch me ever in your life."

  • Spirit said it was working with authorities to further investigate the incident.

A Spirit Airlines agent has been suspended after he confronted a passenger who yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him.

A video posted by DTX Daily on Twitter on Thursday showed a representative of the budget airline having a verbal altercation with a female passenger at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport last month. He told her: "You have lost your mind. Don't touch me ever in your life."

The worker continued to scream at the woman as she tried to back away, before she shouted "get out of my face," followed by a homophobic slur.

 

The airline tweeted on Friday in response to the video: "We are aware of this altercation. Our vendor at [Dallas-Fort Worth] has suspended the agent. Spirit Airlines does not tolerate violence of any kind, and we are working with local law enforcement to investigate this matter."

The video also shows the woman reaching around another passenger who attempted to intervene. She then hit the agent in the face who rushed her before they both fell to the floor.

The woman told police that the Spirit agent pushed her for no reason before the video was taken, according to an incident report obtained by Fox 4 TV.

Thomas Shannon, who took the video, told Fox 4: "She was verbally assaulting him, physically assaulting him, and he just snapped."

The incident report stated that the passenger became angry during the boarding process, per Fox 4. The Spirit agent told authorities that the woman got off a plane complaining there wasn't a seat for her.

He said he asked her to wait in line with the gate agent, but witnesses said the woman cut in front of others and became uncooperative.

Insider contacted Spirit Airlines and Dallas-Fort Worth airport for comment.

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