The mum was furious when she spotted the messages.
The mum was furious when she spotted the messages.
A mum has spoken of her fury after spotting a fellow passenger’s racist text message about her son during their Qantas flight.
The mother shared her ordeal in a Facebook post, detailing the disgraceful experience she and her toddler endured on a four-hour flight from Auckland to Melbourne.
While in the air, the mother was shocked to catch a glimpse of the man’s phone screen, which displayed a message that referred to her as a “lovely fat Islander woman with her black kid” kicking his seat.
She said it made her feel “tired, frustrated and mad”, prompting her to move to the back of the plane with her son to avoid the passenger.
“I feel as though the whole interaction had nothing to do with my son ‘kicking’ his chair but merely something to do with how we looked, with his racial comments,” the mum wrote.
As the plane took off, the mother was shocked to catch a glimpse of the man’s screen, which displayed a message that referred to her weight and her son’s skin colour.
The woman said her son’s legs were too short to kick the seat. Photo / Facebook
The woman said tensions first started when the man turned around and shook his head at her son. When she asked if anything was wrong, he allegedly replied, “I just hope he doesn’t kick my seat the whole way.”
According to her account, the mum was confused as her son’s legs barely dangled over the edge of his seat, let alone kick the seat in front. She told the man that if he was concerned about sitting in front of a child he should have booked business class.
As the plane was about to take off, the man asked if the boy would stop kicking. Once the plane was in the air, she spotted the man venting to someone via the racist text messages.
“I feel as though the whole interaction had nothing to do with my son ‘kicking’ his chair but merely something to do with how we looked, with his racial comments or simply because I had a child who was sitting right behind him,” the mum wrote.
She said the man appeared “shocked” when she confronted him and immediately started to delete the racist text.
At this point, the woman said she and her son felt “tired, frustrated and mad” at the situation.
The man in the seat in front was spotted sending a racist message. Photo / Facebook
After a flight attendant became concerned, the pair eventually moved to the back of the plane, switching seats with another man and his teenage son.
“Shoutout to the flight attendants who went out of their way to make sure we were okay the whole flight, even though my son would not settle,” she wrote.
“I’m not one to share anything or write statuses but this one I was prompted to in the hopes that if you see anything like that I hope you are not a bystander like the many people on that flight who didn’t bother to help or do anything.”
The mum added while she and her son were doing well, she would “definitely” not be travelling without her husband again.
Despite the situation, the flight attendants went above and beyond to take care of the mother and her son during the flight.
The man who sent the offensive text message later apologised to a cabin crew member.
“Should a customer feel uncomfortable during their journey, they should raise it with a member of our crew who are trained on how to manage various situations, as they did on this occasion,” Qantas said in a statement.
