Teens defied mask rules and delayed a flight. They were allowed to fly the next day.
An American Airlines flight to the Bahamas was delayed by a day after dozens of passengers - identified by a student travel company as recent high school graduates - were told they could not fly because of mask violations and disruptive behavior.
After multiple holdups for reasons including mechanical issues, passenger unruliness, Tropical Storm Elsa and the closing time of customs and immigration in Nassau, the plane didn't take off from Charlotte, N.C., until Tuesday morning, nearly 24 hours after it was originally scheduled to leave.
Depending on the source - the airline or the trip organizer - the incident either was an act of mass disruption by more than 30 passengers or a case of multiple teenagers wrongly blamed for the actions of a couple.
Flight 893 embodied all the air travel woes of summer 2021, as increasing numbers of passengers take to the skies to find widespread delays and cancellations and bad behavior in the air.
In this week's case, the delays had already mounted for a couple of hours at Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Monday because of a mechanical issue, causing the 172 passengers to switch to another plane.
According to American Airlines spokesman Andrew Trull, a group of more than 30 passengers who originated in Boston refused to comply with the federal mask mandate, disrupted other passengers and would not listen to crew member instructions. He said they were asked to leave after boarding the replacement plane.
"Per procedure, the customers involved were asked to exit the aircraft," Trull said in a statement. "We expect our customers to comply with our policies when they choose to fly with us, and we take action when that is not the case."
He said in an email that initial reports indicated the passengers' behavior and mask noncompliance was "ongoing throughout the group's travel journey, both in-airport and on board."
American would not identify the passengers or provide their ages for privacy reasons. But student travel company Breakaway Beach, which organized the trip for the students, said in a statement that the group of 47 teenagers was heading to the Bahamas to celebrate their high school graduation.
Based on information from the students and a trip leader who accompanied them, the company said the entire group was painted as "unruly" and "disruptive" because of the actions of one or two, though the exact behavior was unclear. One person was "officially escorted" off the plane, the statement said, but was not given a ticket or charged with anything.
The statement, provided by Breakaway Beach President Eugene Winer, said that while the plane sat on the tarmac during the initial delay, "some passengers including the students may have removed masks due to no air-conditioning/ventilation, quite unbearable conditions."
Winer said that after everyone exited the first plane, the teens were not allowed to board the new one - differing slightly from American's account.
"For several hours the group was told they would not be allowed to reboard and that they would miss their graduation trip (as rebooking them would not have been possible as flights did not have availability for several days)," the statement said.
While American said customers were provided hotel vouchers, Winer said the graduates were excluded because of their age. Seventy percent of the travelers were 18, he said. The tour company booked a hotel, paid for it, and handled food and private transportation to and from the hotel, the statement said.
Unlike many recent cases, the passengers were not kept from flying again on the airline. According to American, they were allowed on board when the flight finally took off on Tuesday - after employees in Charlotte confirmed with them that they could travel as long as they agreed to comply with the mask policy.
Still, Winer said, the way American handled the ordeal was "incredibly disappointing." The statement acknowledged that while any passengers who broke the rules should be removed, students who were doing nothing wrong should not have been punished. He said the company hopes the airline will learn from the situation, apologize and compensate the group for the night of missed vacation.
"The group was treated in an improper and overly harsh manner, causing unnecessary stress and aggravation to the travellers and their parents from afar," the statement said.
Reports about the delayed flight emerged as the Federal Aviation Administration unveiled a public service announcement featuring kids talking about how adults should behave on a plane.
"Even children know it's not safe to disrupt a flight," the video says at the end. "The FAA has ZERO TOLERANCE for not following crew instructions."
The agency also announced it had proposed $119,000 in fines against nine passengers for behavior that included mask violations, physical intimidation, attacks on fellow passengers and vaping. That brings the total of proposed fines this year to more than $682,000.
Since January, the FAA has received at least 3,271 reports of unruly passenger behavior, 2,475 of which involved refusing to follow the federal mask mandate. The agency has identified potential violations in 540 cases and started enforcement in 83 of those.
The agency said it was "aware of the incident" in Charlotte and "investigates all reports it receives from airlines."
Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, told The Washington Post last month that previous tactics of de-escalating bad behavior have not worked as well in recent months. Typically, she said, flight attendants would try to calm a situation by engaging fellow passengers and using a type of peer pressure to ease tensions.
"This environment has been very different because there has been more than one bad actor on the plane," she said. "The helpers, as we would call them, have been less willing to speak up and help add to an atmosphere of calm."
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