Popular YouTube star Adam Saleh took to social media Wednesday morning with a live video, saying he was being kicked off a Delta flight for speaking Arabic to his mom and friend.
"We got kicked out of a Delta airplane because I spoke Arabic on the phone with my mom and to my friend slim.... please help spread the word," Saleh wrote before posting the video to Facebook and Twitter. It shows him being removed from the flight by a crew member.
(Warning: Video contains graphic language)
We got kicked out of a @Delta airplane because I spoke Arabic to my mom on the phone and with my friend slim... WTFFFFFFFF please spread pic.twitter.com/P5dQCE0qos
— Adam Saleh (@omgAdamSaleh) December 21, 2016
Delta says Flight 1 was traveling from London to New York City.
"Two customers were removed from this flight and later rebooked after a disturbance in the cabin resulted in more than 20 customers expressing their discomfort," Delta Airlines said in a statement. "We're conducting a full review to understand what transpired. We are taking allegations of discrimination very seriously; our culture requires treating others with respect."
The airline released a second statement later in the morning:
"We take all allegations of discrimination seriously and we are gathering all of the facts before jumping to any conclusion. Our culture requires treating everyone with respect. Furthermore, Delta people are trained to and frequently handle conflicts between passengers. Maintaining a safe, comfortable and orderly onboard environment is paramount for every flight and requires the cooperation of all of our customers in conjunction with adherence to directions from our crew members. This is a Delta policy and is required by U.S. regulations as well as others governing aviation worldwide. We have spoken with the customers who were removed; they were rebooked on another flight. Plans are in place to immediately speak with our crew and other passengers when the flight lands this afternoon. We will provide an update once we have more information."
Saleh's Facebook profile says he's a Muslim-American actor and YouTuber raised in Brooklyn, New York. He's known for posting viral pranks on YouTube and has more than 1.6 million subscribers.
His management team responded to WFAA's request for comment with the following statement:
"Adam was traveling with his friend Slim from London - Heathrow Airport with Delta Airlines back to New York City after completing the first half of his world tour. He has been traveling to Australia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi (Just to name a few). Adam made a phone call to his mother to let her know that he will be home in the next 7-8 hours after his flight and because Adam's mum only speaks arabic, he was speaking to her in his language. Unfortunately this caused a problem amongst other passengers in the airline who got angry and started abusing him swearing and saying that they felt threatened as he was speaking a different language. The captain decided to escort him and Slim off the plane as the majority of the passengers were racist towards them, they were then spoken to by police and were put onto a different airline with Virgin and are not currently on their way back home to New York City."
