Two women were pulled off of an American Airlines flight in Miami this weekend, reportedly for sitting themselves down in first class where they didn’t belong. The self-upgraders weren’t going to last long there – there’s a flight manifest, and it’s rare that a first class seat is going to go out empty.
If you try to self-upgrade, act confused and apologetic when called out, and do the walk of shame to your seats in the back of the aircraft things will generally turn out fine. If you insist on sitting where you don’t belong, and make a big entitled deal of it when you’re called out, you’ll receive a VIP escort to your final destination – possibly a holding cell – by airport police.
That appears to be what happened as multiple uniformed officers take these two women out of the gate area. One, in a red outfit, is escorted out relatively calmly. The other, in a gray top and black pants, is on the floor with officers around her at one point, then is brought up and escorted out under control of the officers.
Apparently the women sat in first class, refused to move, and escalated the disturbance. The crew called for airport law enforcement. But it’s not totally clear which flight this was. My best guess is it’s actually American Airlines 1816 from Miami to Phoenix on Friday evening. That’s the only flight over the weekend that was actually delayed, and it ran 1 hour 6 minutes late.
Looking at gate E5 departures, though, other candidates would be:
- AA1901 MIA → PLS (Providenciales): departed 08:30 AM (on time).
- AA3065 MIA → UVF (St. Lucia): departed 09:51 AM (on time).
- AA3098 MIA → SVD (Argyle, St. Vincent): departed 11:16 AM (on time).
- AA313 MIA → SJO (San José, Costa Rica): departed 11:42 AM (about 5 min off schedule).
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Airport Operations Bureau handled this one well, as things didn’t escalate further and delays were not significant regardless of which flight was involved, especially since this was a removal that involved cuffs rather than simply assisting the airline in enforcing a decision not to carry the passengers.
