A Sun Country Airlines flight attendant is facing allegations of racial profiling after a Black mother and youth football coach said the crew member targeted her travel group and tried to knock a phone from her hand.
Lauren Price, the founder and coach of the DMV Prime Elite girls flag football team, said she was returning to Baltimore with a party of 19 people, including nine young athletes, when flight attendant Jean Riegelman allegedly launched what Price described as an unprovoked racially charged confrontation.
The incident reportedly began during boarding in Minnesota, after Price took an empty seat that had been reserved for another member of the group who ultimately did not make the flight.
Price told the Daily Mail she had done the same thing without issue on an earlier flight. But this time, she said Riegelman approached and ordered her to move, explaining that another passenger was being relocated from an emergency exit row and would be placed in the row where Price had sat.
Although Price said she complied with the request, she claimed the 66-year-old flight attendant continued to scold the entire group afterward.
“You people need to learn to sit in your assigned seats,” Price recalled Riegelman saying.
“As a white woman, speaking to me, a black woman, her commentary was both racist and intentional,” Price wrote in a Facebook post. “She repeated it several times, loudly, although no one spoke back to her.”
Price said that when she attempted to explain what had happened, Riegelman allegedly threatened to remove her from the plane. The exchange prompted Price’s father to step in and ask the flight attendant not to address his daughter in that manner, she told the Daily Mail.
‘She replied she “could do whatever she wanted” and now she was removing two people from the plane,’ Price said.
Lauren Price (pictured) was on a flight from Minnesota to Maryland when she was kicked off after flight attendant Jean Riegelman forced her to move from an empty seat her group paid for
Riegelman (pictured) was moving a different passenger from the emergency row to the seat Price was in. Price agreed to move, but she said the flight attendant continued to racially berate her group
‘I never thought I’d get kicked off,’ Price told the Daily Mail. ‘The aggression was coming from one side. I never matched her energy.
‘It was awful. That language is a choice.’
Riegelman allegedly called for security, who told the pair they had ’60 seconds’ to remove themselves from the plane or risk being detained by airport police, the mother told the Daily Mail.
They quickly grabbed their things and left, despite Price’s children still being on the flight. They were cared for by her sister in her absence, she said.
Things only got worse afterward, as Sun Country, which is owned by Allegiant, told them they wouldn’t be able to get them flights back to Baltimore for three days and they were not allowed to book them on a different carrier.
Unfortunately, that didn’t work for Price, whose children had appointments and needed their mother, so she and her father booked new tickets on Southwest for hours later, costing them both around $500 each, she told the Daily Mail.
Price was later approached by another employee, who said she had put in a safety complaint with the airline and was hoping to get them a refund.
On Thursday, Sun Country contacted them to refund two original return flights back.
‘You people need to learn to sit in your assigned seats,’ Price recalled Riegelman saying. She had Price and her father removed from the flight and later tried to hit her sister’s phone
Sun Country said it is investigating the situation. Riegelman has since been charged with assault in Maryland
The refunds will not be enough to cover their Southwest flights, so Price and her father are still ‘out the money.’
Her sister also told Price that the flight attendant refused to serve their group and forced another attendant to take care of them. Riegelman also tried to swat the phone out of Price’s sister’s hand while she was filming while deplaning, Price was told.
Riegelman was later charged in Maryland with a second-degree assault charge. A summons for the flight attendant was issued on Tuesday.
‘Sun Country Airlines takes reports like this very seriously. We have been in conversation with the passenger and are working to get all details surrounding the situation,’ an airline representative told the Daily Mail.
Sun Country did not respond to questions about Riegelman’s employment status.
Price told the Daily Mail that she will not be flying the airline again and that the experience traumatized her children.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Allegiant and Riegelman for comment.
