A woman has claimed her family, including a 16-month-old son and mother, were barred from flying with United Airlines because of the way she “mistakenly” addressed one of their flight attendants.
Texas woman Jenna Longoria helped put pressure on the airline to help her family get home, recording videos at X airport and sharing them on Instagram.
Longoria explains in the videos that she was trying to fly from San Francisco with her family headed back home to Austin.
Longoria then claimed, “I was speaking to one of the flight attendants, got their pronouns wrong, the other flight attendant didn’t like it.”
Longoria said she’d apologized, saying “I’m not very good with pronouns.”
“I was holding my son, he was having a temper tantrum, I had the car seat on my back. I wasn’t really focusing on anything except getting my son’s car seat on the flight and getting him comfortable,” Longoria said.
She said United staff accused her of a “hate crime” and warned she might be blacklisted.
United Airport Operations escorted Longoria, along with her family, away from the gate area and a supervisor informed them that it was in fact the captain who made the ultimate call for not to board.
United did not address whether Longoria and her family were barred from boarding after she referred to a flight attendant as transgender.
United said that it denied boarding to “a party of three today traveling out of San Francisco due to a conversation about too many carry-on bags.” The customers later boarded another United flight to complete their journey after the situation was sorted out.
Longoria said the explanation was “puzzling” because she had so many carry-on items on her way to San Francisco as well. Longoria described the incident as “uneventful,” when speaking with one news source.
According to Longoria, a United employee told her she couldn’t pre-board with her 16-month-old son but eventually allowed them on the plane. Longoria said the staffer was so bothered after she commented, “Thank you, sir,'” that he began shaking.
Longoria told FOX Business that the staffer refused to allow her mother on with her, and she had to carry both items as well as a train special board. Longoria said she asked for assistance from a different flight attendant, who then scolded her for calling the earlier staffer “she.”
“I said, ‘look, I don’t know. He, she, they, I’m not versed in my pronouns, can you help me with my son?’ And he said, ‘ma’am, you’re going to have to step off the plane,” Longoria said. “He made me stand at the front of the plane, and said assistance would be coming for me.”
Longoria said she was able to secure another flight and get home after several hours in the airport.
“We were in San Francisco. Everybody looks the same. Sometimes it’s hard in San Francisco to know if someone is a man or a woman or feminine or which way they’re going. If they’re trans or transitioning. But you know, that’s their business. I don’t care,” Longoria said. “All I was focused on was my son, getting him in the seat. I made a slip.”
