Other passengers on the flight are defending the couple, who are black, accusing the staff of racism. Jodi Baptiste was flying from Toronto to Kelowna on Wednesday when she asked another passenger to switch seats so she could sit next to her partner, Andre Henry. The passenger agreed, Batiste said, and a flight attendant told her she would have to pay to change seats. Batiste said others on the plane came to her defense. “Then he says, “It’s not even a matter of changing seats anymore. It’s about [your] stand. And then someone from the back said, “No, it’s your staff that gives an attitude. You should talk to your staff,” he said. Passenger Jennifer Avis witnessed the incident and said Batiste was just defending herself like everyone else. “He wasn’t rude,” Avis said. Avis said it tried to intervene by talking to the flight attendants and then the pilot. “This was clearly racial,” he said. “The other person who switched seats with Jody was a Caucasian man — I never told him. They didn’t say a word to him.”
Batiste said she was told a flight attendant did not feel comfortable with her on the flight and that authorities would be contacted if they did not get off the plane. The police eventually arrived to escort Batiste and Henry off the flight. “I felt naked, ashamed, exposed, embarrassed,” Batiste said. “All kinds of emotions just flow.” He said they had to book new flights, at a cost of nearly $2,000. “It’s a shame all around,” Henry said. Batiste said the hardest part was explaining what happened to their eight-year-old son. Jodi Baptiste said her experience on a Swoop airline led to a challenging conversation with her young son. (CBC) “He was like, ‘Mom, you’re not a bad person,’” she said. “That tugged at my heartstrings and it was the first time I talked to my son about the color of your skin.” Peel police confirmed they responded to a call about a disturbance on a Swoop flight Wednesday afternoon and “escorted the parties from the aircraft without incident.” In a statement to CBC, Swoop Airlines said it has been in contact with the couple. “The safety of travelers and crew members is of the utmost importance and at the time of the reported incident, the crew made the decision to remove the two travelers from the flight,” the statement said. “Swoop has zero tolerance for racism and discrimination of any kind. We take these matters very seriously and have immediately launched an investigation into this file.” Batiste said the airline apologized and offered to reimburse them for the Swoop tickets.