Woman Horrified To Learn Why Airline ‘Permanently Banned’ Her From Flying

A 24-year-old woman has captured the internet’s attention after discovering that she was placed on the no-fly list for American Airlines for the wildest of reasons.
Erin Wright was traveling from Albuquerque to New Orleans on June 27, 2024, when she noticed that she couldn’t check in for her flight. Following her failed attempts to get through, she spoke to someone at the American Airlines kiosk who she said eventually told her that she’s been banned from flying with them.
Wright explained to Newsweek via email that she was “very confused and frustrated” at the time because she couldn’t recall doing anything to warrant a ban.
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“Standing in the airport and being told in front of people that you’ve been banned is a very embarrassing experience, especially when you have no clue why,” Wright, who is based in New Mexico, said.
At the time, she asked staff at the kiosk for an explanation, but they weren’t able to provide any information.
Newsweek has reached out to American Airlines multiple times for comment.
Wright felt she was getting nowhere, so she spent $1,000 on another flight instead, on top of the $400 spent on the ticket she had originally purchased.
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She continued: “I eventually had to just accept it because they were incapable of reversing anything without getting corporate security involved. I couldn’t miss my sister’s bachelorette party as her maid of honor, so I had to book another flight.”
It was a long eight-hour wait for the flight she was allowed to board, so during that time Wright contacted the customer relations department of American Airlines for answers. She received a response 12 days later from the corporate security team telling her that she’d in fact been banned for having “sexual relations with a man on a flight, while intoxicated.”
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This came as quite the surprise for Wright, who is a lesbian and says it was “so obviously not something [she] would do.” While she could see the funny side to this misunderstanding, she also felt incredibly embarrassed that all the people she’d spoken to thought she’d been having sexual relations onboard a flight.
“It’s just so unlike me,” she added. “I felt pretty helpless in advocating for myself because I had such a lack of information.”
Wright immediately sent an appeal to the corporate security team, explaining that she hadn’t done what they thought she had. After three months of waiting, and some prompts in the meantime too, Wright finally got a call with the news she’d been waiting for.
She told Newsweek: “After months of communication, they decided to take me off the no-fly list until further notice, since they can’t figure out what actually happened. They thought I had been diligent enough to show that it most likely wasn’t me.
“I was reimbursed for my American Airlines flight, but was never compensated for the extra flight I had to book or the massive inconvenience and embarrassment I experienced.”
On August 8, after months of back and forth, Wright posted about her debacle on TikTok (@erin_wright_). The video explaining why she got “permanently banned from flying American Airlines” went viral with over 3.5 million views and more than 346,800 likes so far.
“The reaction has been so positive,” Wright told Newsweek. “I love that online communities have the power to create positive change, whether it’s raising money or holding companies accountable to their actions. I’m very happy that I decided to share my experience.”
By sharing the story online, Wright hopes it will urge the airline to “make things right,” as it was an incredibly difficult experience to go through.
At the time of writing, she still hasn’t been compensated by American Airlines for the extra $1,000 spent on alternative plane tickets, but thanks to social media, she’s no longer out of pocket. Wright shared a follow-up video on August 11 revealing that all the attention from her TikTok video had led to approximately $1,008.70 in rewards.
Wright’s video has amassed over 15,700 comments on TikTok, as internet users had plenty of questions about how this could even happen, while others offered suggestions for what she should do.
One comment reads: “This is wild. Why do they allow you to book in the first place if you’re allegedly banned?”
Another TikToker responded: “Did they tell you the date this supposedly happen to see if you were even on that flight? Seems like a quick way to prove to them that they’re wrong.”
While another person wrote: “That’s wild! I’m so sorry you had to go through that!”
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