Flying Imams Incident - Aftermath

Aftermath

The day following the incident, Shahin, the spokesperson for the group, spoke to the press that had gathered when he returned to a US Airways ticket counter to buy new tickets for the group. He told media that the incident was "humiliating, the worst moment of my life," and asked, "To practice your faith and pray is a crime in America?" When US Airways would not issue him and the other imams new tickets he called for a boycott of the airline, and said, "I'm not going to stay silent... I came to this country to enjoy justice and freedom". He has said it is incorrect that any of the men had one-way tickets, and that he had alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to the conference in order to prevent this kind of incident from occurring.

On November 27, Shahin and others, including Mahdi Bray (executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation), Rabbi Arthur Waskow (of the Shalom Center of Philadelphia), Reverend Graylan Hagler (of the United Church of Christ), and Hillary Shelton (director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People-Washington National Office) held a "pray-in" consisting of a press statement, public prayer, and flight departure at a US Airways ticket counter at Reagan National Airport.

Another protest, organized by the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, took place on December 1, 2006, in front of US Airways headquarters. The spokesman for the group said: "We want to tell US Airways that second-class citizenship is not an option." Other speakers at the gathering included a Jewish leader, a Catholic cleric, and a Presbyterian pastor who told the crowd that the "Imams did nothing to merit their exclusion from the flight". A spokesman for the Muslim American Society said that several of the affected imams did not attend the gathering because they are shy about publicity, and had been humiliated.

One of the imams, al-Shqeirat, spiritual leader of the Islamic Community Center of Tempe, said in an interview that the imams were likely to file a discrimination lawsuit against US Airways, saying that "it was handled in an unprofessional way, and the decision (to remove them from the plane) was made by unprofessional people."

Muslim Congressman-elect Keith Ellison, who gave a talk on "Imams and Politics"" at the meeting from which the flying imams were returning home, attempted to organize a meeting between US Airways executives, the Metropolitan Airports Commission, and other legislators and community members to discuss the incident.

Investigations by the airline, the Air Carrier Security Committee of the Air Line Pilots Association, and the Department of Homeland Security supported the actions of the airline and found no evidence that the men were removed from the airline due to religious discrimination because they were "merely praying," but rather for security reasons. A US Airways spokesperson said, "We've done what we typically do in a situation where there is a removal or some kind of customer service at issue.... We talked with crew members and passengers and those on the ground.... We found out the facts are substantially the same, and the imams were detained because of the concerns crew members had based on the behavior they observed, and from reports by the customers.... We're looking at it as a security issue and as a customer-service issue and where we might need to do outreach." A meeting between the six imams and the airline as part of the investigation was canceled at the imam's request.

The imams retained the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as their legal counsel. Nihad Awad, executive director of CAIR, sent a letter to the airline seeking a settlement agreement and said, "otherwise, the group is prepared to go to court.” Awad told CNN, “This is very important. Otherwise we have no guarantees such incidents with US Airways and other airlines would not happen again.” No information about the amount of damages sought was given.

On October 27, 2009, the "flying imams" and the air carrier settled out of court for an unknown amount.