WASHINGTON, May 28 (RIA Novosti) – A group of Russian-Americans is seeking compensation from a US budget airline after they were kicked off a flight set to take off from San Diego to Las Vegas last week, reportedly because they were speaking Russian, their lawyer said Tuesday.
“They were on a flight, speaking to each other… in Russian, and about five minutes before the plane took off, someone came over and kicked them off the flight,” attorney Daniel Petrov, whose sister, Sana Bitman, was one of the six passengers who were asked to leave the Spirit Airlines flight, told RIA Novosti.
“They never got an explanation,” said Petrov.
The Russian-speakers were on their way to Las Vegas to meet up with old friends, who they hadn’t seen in around 20 years, to celebrate a marriage.
Local media reports in San Diego said the group had been asked to leave the plane because they were speaking Russian.
But Spirit Airlines spokeswoman Misty Pinson told RIA Novosti that: “Our preliminary review shows that the customers were asked to deplane for loud and disruptive behavior.”
The airline was in the process of conducting a complete review, and was “reaching out to the customers,” she said.
But Petrov said that the group believes they were speaking more softtly than other passengers on the plane and insists they were never asked to be quiet or warned that they might be kicked off the plane.
“Spirit said they warned them over the loudspeaker. But no one heard, and if they had warned them over the loudspeaker, what would they have said? ‘You people speaking Russian, stop?’” Petrov questioned.
“No one came up to them and said anything, ever. The only thing that was different between them and everyone else is that they were speaking Russian,” he said.
Spirit refunded the group’s airfares and offered to put them on a different flight to Las Vegas, but it didn’t fit with their schedule, Petrov said.
The group is trying to reach an out-of-court settlement with the airline, which Petrov says violated a section of California law that forbids discrimination based on, among other criteria, national origin. Each passenger would be entitled to at least $4,000 plus legal fees, Petrov said, adding that his clients will sue if they cannot reach a settlement with Spirit.
But he insisted that the expelled passengers were not trying to make an international incident out of the fact that they were booted from their flight and missed a party in Vegas; they are merely seeking justice under California law.
“We’re not trying to make this a big deal because they’re Russian,” Petrov said.
“What we’re saying is the US is a melting pot and you’re not supposed to discriminate. We believe the airline did, and under California law, they’re liable.”
