British boxer Amir Khan has said he was escorted from a flight in the US by police “for no reason”.
The 34-year-old, who has also appeared on reality television shows including I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!, claimed he had been banned by American Airlines.
In a video posted to Twitter, the boxer said he had been trying to fly to a training camp in Colorado from New York, but he and a colleague were removed when someone complained his colleague’s mask “was not high enough”.
He spoke of being “disgusted” by his alleged treatment. Khan said: “I was taken off the plane today when I was going to training camp to Colorado Springs by the police.
“Obviously a complaint was made by American Airlines staff, they said that my colleague’s mask was not high enough and not up, that they had to stop the plane and take me and my friend off when I did nothing wrong.
“They kicked us both off, I was sat on 1A, he was sat on 1B – I find it so disgusting and so disrespectful, I was supposed to go to Colorado Springs for a training camp and now I’m back in New York for another day.
“Now I have to reschedule another airplane to travel back to training camp which is really upsetting, for no reason this was and I’m just so disgusted that American Airlines would do this to us and ban me from travelling.
“I’m sure there must be cameras on the airplane that they could see, or someone should see, to see that if my colleague really was bad in anyway or caused a scene in a way where he had to be taken off the plane – I’ve never seen this happen before.”
American Airlines said in a statement that before take-off, the aircraft had “returned to the gate to deplane two customers who reportedly refused to comply with repeated crew member requests to stow luggage, place cell phones in airplane mode and adhere to federal face covering requirements”.
The statement added that the two passengers had got off the plane without incident, and that police were present as a matter of protocol. The airline said neither Khan nor his colleague had been put on an “internal refuse list” or banned from future travel on American Airlines or its partners.
The company added that its customer relations team was contacting Khan “to learn more about his experience and reinforce the importance of policies implemented for the safety of our customers and crew”.
