Teenagers Who Staged A Mask Protest Forced To Spend Night In Charlotte Airport

American Airlines flight AA893 from Charlotte to Nassau went mechanical on Monday, and the airline switched aircraft to get passengers on their way. Already delayed several hours, tensions were running high. And a group of high school students on board chose the moment they were on their second aircraft, ready to depart, to stage a mask protest that “lasted for hours.”

American ditched plans to operate the flight, put some of the passengers up in hotel rooms, and scheduled a departure for Tuesday instead.

“Some people’s vacations are ruined. They were only going for a couple of nights. Now, they have to get rebooked,” passenger Stephanie Krzywanski said.

The flight was supposed to depart at 9:30 a.m, but a mechanical issue meant passengers had to switch planes. But then a group of students from a Boston-area high school decided to act up.

“It was bad. First, they were yelling. They were cursing. They were being very obnoxious,” passenger Malik Banks said.

One passenger says “75% to 80%” of the group of 30 were “being terrible kids.” Yet no one was arrested or even banned from the airline. All of the teens were given a chance to fly on Tuesday, provided they wore masks.

For the overnight adult passengers were given a hotel voucher, but “because the students are either 17 or 18 years old, they are too young to get a room, so they had to spend the night at the airport.”

A delay makes the mask experience more frustrating. Teens see themselves as invincible, and in Covid-19 their risks have been much lower than the general population. They likely didn’t have access to either of the two Minute Suites in the airport where they’d have a private room to ride out the delay sans mask (these are Priority Pass-accessible).


Charlotte Minute Suites

Yet it’s still amazing that this far into the pandemic people stage mask protests, as though those are going to end any other way than badly for the passenger. 2400 of the first 3000 incidents reported to the FAA this year involved mask compliance.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. This is terrible! Why weren’t they all summarily executed right there on the spot for not obeying Potatohead Biden’s decree. Yup one bullet in each of their heads so that they won’t even think of disobeying “gubmint rules” again….should probably also punish the next two generations of their families too.
    Look where this country is right now….frightening.

  2. So now one of the chaperones is saying that only 1 child refused to wear his mask. I hope the F/A asked him to put it on before removing him from the flight. But in any event, the chaperone does say that after another passenger went to the bathroom without a mask, the teens became rowdy. A group of 46 teens becoming rowdy is a legitimate reason to remove them from the flight. They are VERY lucky they were allowed to fly the next day.

  3. Chris, you idiot. Its not about protecting yourself, its about not being a complete sociopath and protecting others who may not have the same strength of immunity or may have other severe health problems that could easily make covid a death sentence. The masks are there to stop you from SPREADING the virus as someone who is carrying it and doesn’t know. But sociopathic people like you simply do not care if you directly cause another innocent person’s death. Your hyperbolic childish response proves exactly what I am saying. You delusional sociopaths neither want to get the vaccine nor take even the most basic steps to protect your fellow man from you since you have chosen to be completely socially irresponsible and not getting the vaccine. Listen if you don’t care if you die, that’s fine, nobody will miss you, but we’re not going to allow you to infect others because of your choice. YOUR FREEDOMS DO NOT EXTEND TO PRIVATELY OWNED AIRLINES WHO HAVE RULES IN PLACE TO PROTECT THEIR PASSANGERS. You absolute child. I can only imagine how frustrated all of these poorer nations who are going through hell that are begging for vaccines watching their friends and families die around them seeing completely idiotic sociopathic delusional American hogs ranting and raving about microchips in the vaccine and “muh freedoms”. I don’t blame them anymore for thinking we are a nation of idiots. It’s apparent many of us, like you for instance, are indeed exactly that.

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