Frontier Airlines is currently in hot water.
Our sister site, Blavity News, reports that the budget airline carrier dispatched the police to Lakeyjanay Bailey as she was attempting to deplane in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. Bailey was traveling with her adoptive sister, Olivia, who is white.
“There were two police officers, and they came up to me and said, ‘Is it okay if we talk to you?'” Bailey recalled. “She asked Livie if she knows me and what am I to her, and he asked what my mom was to her.”
As it turned out, Frontier Airlines suspected Bailey of trafficking her younger sister. It took authorities calling Olivia’s birth mother and a social worker to finally get the matter cleared up. But Bailey said that the situation was “humiliating.”
“If the roles were changed and it was a white person walking off the plane with a Black person, like a Black child, I feel like things would be different,” she said. “I feel bad knowing that I might have to go through that a lot.”
Bailey also said that she was considering legal action against the budget airline. But a spokesperson for Frontier Airlines said that they were just following protocol.
“A concern was raised during the flight by another passenger who was sitting near the woman and child and suspected human trafficking. That passenger approached the flight crew with those concerns and subsequently completed a written report during the flight to document her observations,” the airline said in a statement. “The captain was notified and felt an obligation to report the matter. Air travel is one of the most common means of human trafficking. Race played no part in the actions of the flight crew, who were following established protocols.”
No charges were filed against Bailey or the airline.