A Sun Country flight attendant is facing assault charges and a lawsuit, over an incident that happened on a flight earlier this month, after people were kicked off a flight. It’s common to see flight attendants kick people off planes with fairly limited repercussions, so at least the assault accountability is good.
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Sun Country flight attendant accused of racism & assault
Earlier this month, a social media post went viral, regarding an incident that happened on August 3, 2026, on Sun Country flight 193 from Minneapolis (MSP) to Baltimore (BWI). A girls flag football team was traveling from the Junior Olympics in Iowa as a group that was supposed to include 19 people.
Two of the booked travelers didn’t make it, so they ended up being a group of 17 (everyone in the group were Black — an important detail, given what’s being claimed). During boarding, one of the travelers ended up sitting in one of the seats of the passengers who didn’t make it, figuring the seats had been paid for, and wouldn’t be occupied by anyone else.
Before we get deeper into this, let me point out that while this is a logical conclusion to draw, airlines do cancel tickets if you don’t show up, and other people can be assigned those seats, so that’s not quite how it works. But that’s an honest mistake, and seems easy enough to correct, and like it shouldn’t escalate.
Anyway, around the end of boarding, one of the flight attendants told this traveler that she needed to move to her assigned seat, and “her tone was condescending, disrespectful, and unnecessary.” The woman claims she immediately moved, though the flight attendant continued to berate the entire group, stating “you people need to learn to sit in your assigned seats.”
The traveler points out how being spoken to that way “was both racist and intentional,” and “she repeated it several times, loudly.” The passenger apologized again about the confusion, though the flight attendant “continued with the verbal assault and threatened to have [her] removed from the flight.” At that point, the woman’s father, sitting adjacent to her, asked the flight attendant not to speak in that manner.
She reportedly replied that she “could do whatever she wanted,” and decided to remove the woman and her father from the plane. Another flight attendant reportedly came up to them at this point, apologizing, and claiming the other flight attendant’s actions were unprovoked and unacceptable.
That second flight attendant reportedly claimed they wouldn’t be removed from the flight, only for the other flight attendant to return a short while later with security, to have the two removed. They were told if they didn’t voluntarily move within a minute, they would be removed and possibly detained.
The pair ended up being removed from the flight. Other passengers who remained on the plane reported that they heard the other flight attendant say that the flight attendant who was the center of the whole incident didn’t “want to come back here,” referring to where the group was sitting, to provide service.
Things also escalated once the plane landed. A member of the group tried to get a video of the flight attendant in question while walking off the plane, and the flight attendant ended up attempting to swat the phone out of the passenger’s hand.
The flight attendant ended up being charged with assault for attempting to do that. On top of that, the group is filing a civil rights lawsuit over the altercation, against the flight attendant and the airline.
I don’t know what will come of this, but I’m all for accountability
All too often, we see flight attendants kick passengers off flights on questionable grounds, with no real repercussions. Obviously I wasn’t there, so I can’t say with certainty what happened.
What I can say is that if the flight attendant really did pull a “you people,” that’s disgusting. I suppose some would make the argument that this isn’t inherently racist, though at an absolute minimum, it’s terrible customer service and shows a very bad attitude.
Furthermore, while recording employees without their consent violates rules at virtually all airlines, that doesn’t make it illegal. It certainly doesn’t justify attempting to swat a phone out of someone’s hand. This flight attendant sounds absolutely horrible, plain and simple.
I’m not sure how much success this will have as a civil rights lawsuit, but I’m all for a court hearing the case.
Bottom line
A Sun Country flight attendant was charged with assault, after attempting to swat the phone out of a passenger’s hand, while she was recording the crew upon deplaning. This came after two other people in the group were kicked off the flight, as an enraged flight attendant reportedly referred to a group of Black travelers as “you people” on multiple occasions.
I’m not sure how far this lawsuit will go, but if the facts are even remotely close to how they’re presented, this flight attendant sounds pretty awful.
What do you make of these Sun Country assault charges, plus the lawsuit?
This is where the unions need to step in and lobby for legislation so that airline crew have qualified immunity for their actions taken in the line of duty. You cannot have a situation where safety concerns are secondary to potential civil liability in situations like this.
Sean, we’re overdue for air passenger rights legislation in the US, and perhaps a revisiting of international treaties as well, that can and maybe should include compromises such as what you suggest, but also duty of care and compensation for issues under the airline’s control. I think EU/UK 261 is a good start, but could also be further improved. As you have run operations for airlines, I’m confident you have your own preferences. There can...
Sean, we’re overdue for air passenger rights legislation in the US, and perhaps a revisiting of international treaties as well, that can and maybe should include compromises such as what you suggest, but also duty of care and compensation for issues under the airline’s control. I think EU/UK 261 is a good start, but could also be further improved. As you have run operations for airlines, I’m confident you have your own preferences. There can and should be a better balance between the industry and consumers on many fronts. Better expectations and a renewed baseline standard would go a long way.
‘It’s common to see flight attendants kick people off planes with fairly limited repercussions, so at least the assault accountability is good’
‘All too often, we see flight attendants kick passengers off flights on questionable grounds, with no real repercussions’
@Ben To make things clearer and more accurate, it should have been written as flight attendants in the United States and Canada.
I am thinking about your posts about the flight attendant going on a...
‘It’s common to see flight attendants kick people off planes with fairly limited repercussions, so at least the assault accountability is good’
‘All too often, we see flight attendants kick passengers off flights on questionable grounds, with no real repercussions’
@Ben To make things clearer and more accurate, it should have been written as flight attendants in the United States and Canada.
I am thinking about your posts about the flight attendant going on a power trip on Air Canada and Alaska Airlines.
Rather one-sided report.
I presume we should assume FA was white?
Of course they play the race card. Some people see racism everywhere. The FA should be given the benefit of the doubt and is empowered to kick anyone off that may be a risk or creates a disturbance.
You should just as racist as the attendant. Trump got you feeling bold huh? I bet you wouldn't say what she said around a group of blacks. Because they'd beat tf out of you.
Who you callin' "you people"?
@Retired Gambler
So, according to you all the flight attendant has to say is that he or she may be…..to get removed from the flight with the key words being may be. That flight attendant could just not like you or wants retaliation and just use the ‘may’ to get you off the flight. You really are further empowering the flight attendants in the U.S. and Canada to be able to go on daily power trips with no repercussions at all.
Hey Racist: The assaulted pax didn't create a disturbance, but she moved immediately. You didn't understand the writeup, did you?
Sounds like an unnecessarily rude FA triggered someone with a huge chip on their shoulder. Allegations of "racism" have become so commonplace as to be effectively trivialitised. Nothing to see here, folks.
*trivialised
Are you suggesting that racism doesn't exist? Were you on the flight and witnessed the events? No? Well I guess your opinion is irrelevant. I'm guessing you are caucasian and have no lived experience of what racism is.
‘airlines do cancel tickets if you don’t show up, and other people can be assigned those seats’
Nope. If you don’t show up, you a noshow at boarding. No airline cancels those seats.
. . . i guess, you don't travel that often or have not too much knowledge of how last minute changes at boarding happen.
Simple example, so you might understand better!
ID travel staff get's seats assigned often at the last second before a gate for a flight closes, because they get the last open seats on a flight, if any available.
THIS is just 1 example of how you thing supposedly sold seats get re-assigned to new passengers. ;-)
Wouldn't it be "Everyone in the group WAS black."?
No, it's "were," Ben wrote it correctly.
No, @TravelinWilly. Actually, @Alphonse is correct. ‘Everyone was’ would be used in the singular form. ‘Everyone were’ would be used in a hypothetical, wishful or unreal situation.
Nope, the group has many people, and THEY are actually the subject, not “group.”
“Were” is correct.
No, you are still wrong @TravelinWilly. It does not matter if there are many people in a group because everyone is a pronoun that takes on the singular form. It takes on the singular form because everyone is an indefinite pronoun. The indefinite pronoun in Ben’s sentence refers to many people or things such as everyone but once again it takes a singular verb.
For the record always trust a German when he’s correcting your English. They are better educated than you.
Mr Nuremberg and Stanly are correct. The word Everyone is singular not plural…. now, if we add a space, and break it up to Every One… it helps to understand.
German here, though I learned UK English.
The *reference* is to a group. Nobody is disputing that. The group IS made up of members. THEY ARE the members of the group.
The more you know...
@TravelinWilly just because Ben is referring to a group of people where he happens to use everyone it does not make it grammatically correct to use were instead of was for everyone in that sentence. This is called a grammar rule. You don’t add an s, es, are or were for all things that are plural. Once again, it depends on the grammar rule.
So, according to your analogy if a lot of crappy things...
@TravelinWilly just because Ben is referring to a group of people where he happens to use everyone it does not make it grammatically correct to use were instead of was for everyone in that sentence. This is called a grammar rule. You don’t add an s, es, are or were for all things that are plural. Once again, it depends on the grammar rule.
So, according to your analogy if a lot of crappy things is happening to someone you would ask that person “Are everything all right?” instead of “Is everything all right?” because things=plural?
@stanley-c
“…a lot of crappy things is happening to someone…” Ugh. That’s embarrassing for you.
On top of that your analogy fails. “Is everything all right?” would be asked in any event.Q.E.D.
@TravelinWilly Do you not realize when someone is doing it on purpose to show the flaw in your analogy?
Here you go to help further your
studies in English as a German:
https://textranch.com/c/everyone-was-or-everyone-were/
‘On top of that your analogy fails. “Is everything all right?” would be asked in any event.Q.E.D’
Exactly. That was my point. To prove your analogy was incorrect. You said many people so it should be were instead of was for...
@TravelinWilly Do you not realize when someone is doing it on purpose to show the flaw in your analogy?
Here you go to help further your
studies in English as a German:
https://textranch.com/c/everyone-was-or-everyone-were/
‘On top of that your analogy fails. “Is everything all right?” would be asked in any event.Q.E.D’
Exactly. That was my point. To prove your analogy was incorrect. You said many people so it should be were instead of was for everyone. So, we can use your analogy with everything. Everything according to your analogy would be many things thus we should use everything were based on your wrong logic.
You are the Tim Dunn of English grammar. Just making stuff up.
Haha. Must be really embarrassing for TravelinWilly to think it should be everyone were instead of everyone was.
Thank you FoulOwl
No racism. Just annoying passengers and typical rude FA
As Ben wrote, we weren't there and can't really know what happened based on third or fourth hand information, but let me pose a couple questions:
1. What was the race/ethnicityu of the flight attendant in question?
2. Would your interpretation of "you people change" if the attendant was also black?
If you interpret "you people" as presumably racist if said by a white, Asian, or Hispanic person, but not racist if...
As Ben wrote, we weren't there and can't really know what happened based on third or fourth hand information, but let me pose a couple questions:
1. What was the race/ethnicityu of the flight attendant in question?
2. Would your interpretation of "you people change" if the attendant was also black?
If you interpret "you people" as presumably racist if said by a white, Asian, or Hispanic person, but not racist if said by a black attendant, perhaps you have your own problem with bigotry.
@Mark Do not forget to add Native Americans.
Hard to tell who the players are without a program. It's tiring.
@Mark I do agree with your comments. More details should be shared for a better understanding.
….crickets….
Rude flight attendant? Very possible and likely true. Racist? I don't buy it. Plenty of nasty flight attendants out there that come off a rude and nasty manner to all flyers.
@ George Romey -- I respect your opinion, but I'm curious, when you hear someone refer to a group of people on a plane as "you people," how do you interpret that as not being a charged statement? What else could it refer to other than "people like you?"
The most charitable read might be "groups of high schoolers".
[I'm thinking of the cheerleader families at Disney.]
I'm not sure that necessarily fits and it's a bad look regardless of it being true or not, but I think that's at least a plausible read.
I have literally never heard anyone use the words "you people" to refer to a specific group of people. The only non racial contexts I have ever heard the phrase was someone making a generalization about the targets employer or family
I once had a rather hostile client say “you attorneys . . .” blah blah. He was clearly putting me in a group he disliked. That was it. I fired him!
Tbh, “you people” in this context comes off to me as “you lot” or “yall”.
At least that’s how it sounded to me. Not sure what the intentions of the FA were.
Ben, there is no way to prove this is "racism." You can't win a case based upon something that can't be proven.
BTW, ULCCs make money by selling seats. That's why flight attendants are trained not allow seat swapping.