A photographer claims he was prevented from leaving an American Airlines (AA) flight when one member of cabin crew thought they saw him taking a photo of them.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren, from Seattle, took to Twitter to complain about the incident, which appears to have taken place on Friday (28 October).
He alleges that a member of the crew “physically prevented” him from leaving the flight until he had shown them the contents of his phone’s camera roll, as they suspected he had taken a photo of them.
“Honest question: can a crew member physically prevent me from getting off of the airplane until I showed them the contents of my phone (they wanted to see the last three photos) to verify that I did not take a photo that contained them in it?” he wrote on the social media platform.
The incident happened on a PSA Airlines flight operated by AA. Mr Dwyer-Lindgren posted the offending photograph, which is of an empty plane cabin, looking up the aisle to the crew galley.
In the background of the shot is what appears to be a fellow passenger disembarking with his backpack slung on.
The photographer later expanded on the story in a series of follow-up tweets, saying that he had already left the aircraft and stepped onto the jetbridge when he was called over by a flight attendant: “I was off the plane and the FA [flight attendant] had the captain prevent me from going further down the jetbridge and then brought me *back* onto the plane and took the phone out of my hands.
“And at some point I’m gauging how this is going and thinking this isn’t worth it.
“The FA had what I think was the pilot or FO [first officer] block me from going further. Then they brought me back on the plane and the FA demanded I open my phone and show them the last several photos and then took the phone out of my hands to inspect them,” he claimed.
He says he then “pushed back”, telling the crew members they could not take his phone from him, and that they accepted this but still would not let him go until he showed them the photos they wanted to see.
“They kept citing policies around not taking photos of staff without consent, which I didn’t do. I understand not wanting to be in them, that’s fine. But surely you could ask vs detain?” he wrote.
There is no official policy at American Airlines about passengers filming or taking photos onboard flights.
The bemused passenger later reported that an American Airlines representative had phoned him to apologised about the incident.
“They apologised profusely. They admitted the FA [flight attendant] cannot touch my phone. The rest was squishy, and all I got on the functional detainment was to the effect of ‘it’s not how I would’ve done it’,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet.
“They said they had opened an internal investigation on the incident, that they would be speaking with the FA and that they would be using it to review their photo/video policies. They did not proactively offer me anything. And that was kind of it from a substance side,” he added.
The photographer also tagged several aviation journalists and experts in the Twitter thread, adding, “I’ve reached out to PSA/AA on this incident and look forward to hearing back.”
Business travel expert David Slotner replied to Mr Dwyer-Lindgren’s question about the legality of the detainment, saying, “On the ground? Fairly sure not.”
He pointed to a recent case where a reporter for The Points Guy, Zach Honig, wrote about being reprimanded by American Airlines crew for taking photos of their business class cabin and his girlfriend in it, with one member of staff allegedly saying: “This could be trouble for both of you.”
Mr Honig asked for evidence of where that was in the airline’s conditions of carriage: “Since the purser implied that photography was formally prohibited, I asked if there was a written policy that I could review.
“She said that it isn’t available to the public, but that it’s in her employee handbook, and showing me that could compromise the security of the airline.”
He added that the same crew member asked if he’d like to take it up with the plane’s captain: “She then suggested that I could speak to the police when we landed in London, too. Holy moly.”
An American Airlines spokesperson said that a member of its Customer Relations team had “reached out to learn more about the customer’s experience”.
