According to confirmed reports, the NAACP has lifted its months-long travel ban against American Airlines on Tuesday. Organization officials said they believe the airline has finally made some significant headway in cutting down on discrimination incidents involving passengers of color.
The announcement came via Twitter after the civil rights organization advised American Airlines on diversity and inclusion after implementing the ban over “unsafe” conditions for African-Americans last fall.
NAACP Lifts American Airlines Travel Advisory https://t.co/zovgMpMHpO
— NAACP (@NAACP) July 17, 2018
American agreed to make big changes in a number of areas: diversity and inclusion gap research; implicit bias training for the airlines’ 130,000 employees; and the launch a discrimination complaint resolution process for workers and customers. The NAACP said the airline made a good effort to ensure their business was more comfortable for Black travelers and its staff members. Surely, the airlines had some major work to do in cleaning up its previous controversies.
American Airlines has been extra disrespectful to Black passengers in the past. There was the booting of activist Tamika Mallory from a flight after a seat assignment squabble last October.
Joey Badass was also racially profiled while on an American Airlines flight in January, he said. A flight attendant told him he didn’t belong in first class, he tweeted.
AA led the aviation industry with the highest number of discrimination complaints. The airline had 29 of them filed against it last year, according to data from the U.S. Transportation Department.
