A woman has shared her horror after being forced to pay an "African American service charge" when she booked an American Airlines flight out of Charlotte, North Carolina, with her partner.
Kyetra Bryant explained in a Facebook post on January 28, that she first noticed the fee on her bank statement, which listed the "African American African Service Charge."
What's more, Bryant's boyfriend received the exact same statement despite the fact that they each used a different debit card to pay their luggage charges.
The passenger said in the Facebook post:
"Over Thanksgiving Wes and I traveled to Denver from the Charlotte International Airport via American Airelines. We both used different cards to pay for our luggage and instead of it being noted as such, both of our bank statements read AFRICAN AMERICAN SERVICE CHARGE.
"The manager at the airport gave some sob story about how sorry she was but I got no answers. I was told that all I could do was file a complaint. I got called by one person and then it was sent to IT to be 'investigated' but still no one has an answer as to why it was listed that way.
"Honestly, I didn't expect a response but I'm not stupid and no I don't think it was a mistake. Never flying with them again but it's funny how they keep passing it off to different departments."
Speaking to Fox 46, Bryant said "there’s really no justification."
"We definitely felt targeted," she added. "That’s an instance of racial bias."
However, American Airlines says it is not responsible for the incident.
When Bryant raised the issue with the airline in December, staff were "disturbed by what we saw and immediately launched an investigation into what occurred," American Airlines said in a statement, per the outlet.
"The baggage fee was purchased at a self-service kiosk in Charlotte. Our team members are unable to change text when processing a charge and we’ve determined the issue originated with the credit card company and bank issuer," the statement continued.
"We reached out to Mastercard who confirmed that American submitted the baggage fee information correctly during the payment process and Mastercard is conducting its own investigation."
On Monday, a Mastercard spokesperson said, per McClatchy News:
"We are in the process of conducting a thorough investigation, however, it is our understanding that American Airlines is not responsible for this error.
"American Airlines submitted the transaction correctly for a checked baggage purchase - including the proper merchant name. Our bank issuing and payment processing partners are working to understand how the error occurred so this does not happen again."
