There are already more than enough indignities associated with flying for all Americans, from ever-lessening leg room to creeping fees. But apparently, those indignities aren’t enough for American Muslims to bear. Maybe Southwest Airlines ought to add another letter to their seat-assignment-free group alphabetical boarding scheme: M, for boarding while Muslim.

One might think that after the attacks in Paris, some suspicions could be justified. But singling out people for their obvious Middle Eastern traits and Muslim faith should be called what it is: bigotry. Still, over the past week, in the wake of the Paris attacks, Muslims in the US have faced a handful of incidents that, though the circumstances of all the incidents are not clear, have led to allegations of bias among not only other passengers, but airlines as well.



On one of the flights, from Indianapolis to Los Angeles early Sunday, Southwest flyers got a scare when, about a third of the way into the trip, the plane was diverted and landed in Kansas City. The unplanned stop was precipitated by “suspicious behavior” by a group of passengers at the back of the plane. Southwest later said the men were behaving in an “unruly” manner.

One of the men, who bore a dark complexion, could be seen in a cellphone video being escorted from the plane by law enforcement. What was his sin? One witness told a local news channel in San Francisco that the men’s apparent bad behavior began during the safety briefings we’ve all learned by heart and pretend to pay attention to. These men dropped the charade of interest: “That part of the debrief at the beginning, they had gotten out of their seats and had swapped seats in the middle of that particular section and that was something that created an issue,” the witness said.

Unless the seating arrangements were a proxy for what order to blow themselves up in, I’m not sure that ignoring the safety briefing merited such alarm. During the unscheduled stopover, passengers were deplaned and bomb-sniffing dogs were brought aboard. The flight was then re-boarded and continued on without the three men, who were forced to take a later flight – an indication, one hopes, that they no longer raised security suspicions.

In another incident last week, six reportedly Muslim travelers were told they had to get off a plane preparing to take off from Chicago to Houston. That flight was delayed but, in this case too, the passengers were allowed to take a later flight.

Perhaps the most striking incident also came last Wednesday, when Maher Khalil and Anas Ayyad, two Americans of Palestinian extraction attempting to board a flight from Chicago to Philadelphia, could be overheard by another passenger speaking Arabic. Khalil and Ayyad were stopped from boarding and told of the complaints: someone was afraid to fly with them.



“If that person doesn’t feel safe, let them take the bus,” Khalil, a pizza shop owner in Philly, told his local NBC station. After a delay, Khalil and Ayyad were ultimately allowed on board, but their fellow passengers’ suspicions still ran high. “People kept asking me, ‘What’s in that box?!’ I was carrying a small white box. And the passengers made me open the box!” Khalil said. “So I shared my baklava with them.” Now that’s generosity: Khalil’s bias-tinged would-be interrogators got sweets.

The difficulty of Flying While Muslim is something I’ve encountered, too – despite being a staunch atheist, albeit one with a very Muslim name. I used to be on the government watch list, several airlines employees told me along the way, as I encountered hurdles to checking in and boarding. I couldn’t use the electronic check-in kiosks – though airline personnel always made me try, instead of a boarding pass I got a note to see a ticket agent. I haven’t even, so far as I can remember, jawed loudly in Farsi with family members on board or in line.

Once a delayed flight caused me to miss a connection in Newark Liberty international airport and, in order to book a new flight, an airline manager had to call over a New Jersey state cop to oversee the process. (In the late 2000s, the government purged many of the names on the list and I’ve been flying hassle free for about five years.)

It’s not always clear that the incidents discussed here and elsewhere spring from anti-Muslim bigotry, but enough of the tales point that way, and my own experiences suggest there’s something to it. The petty inconveniences I suffered, after all, weren’t even due to fellow passengers’ or airlines’ suspicions, but the government’s.

Both our American values and security would be better served if we – Americans who are simply flying on planes or working for the airlines – treated all people, no matter what language they were speaking, equally, saving our suspicions for people actually acting suspiciously.