Editor's Review

The passenger had apparently lost her seat to a minister, her protests not bearing any fruit.


Ethiopian Airlines has defended itself against accusations of unceremoniously ejecting a passenger in a Nairobi-bound flight from Addis Ababa. 

CNN correspondent Larry Madowo, who was onboard the same flight, documented the commotion on Friday, July 19.

According to Madowo, the aggrieved passenger was made to leave her seat for a purported VIP personality.

An Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane.

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"Ethiopian Airlines kicked out a passenger on my flight because a minister took her seat. They didn’t apologize, and they eventually forcefully offloaded her screaming. The minister did nothing. Disgraceful...It was almost 11.30 pm and the next flight to Nairobi was the following day. The Ethiopian minister saw her fighting, and he just sat there. I had fallen asleep and was woken up by the commotion. She wanted this to go viral," Madowo posted on the X social network, accompanying a video filmed inside the bird.


The viral video thrust the Airline company into the receiving end, with social media users castigating the crew for their alleged unbecoming conduct. 

Weighing into the events, the company said the clip narration of the clip was misunderstood.

According to Ethiopian Airlines, the affected passenger engineered her woes by insisting on boarding a full flight.

The airline said the passenger bypassed the counsel given to her to wait for another flight and strive to force their presence on the departing flight.

"The flight experienced an overbooking situation. Three individuals with standby economy class boarding passes arrived at the boarding gate just a few minutes before the scheduled departure time of the flight. The Boarding Agent advised them that the flight was full and they would be protected on the next flight.

However, they ignored the advice of the Boarding Agent and attempted to board the aircraft bypassing security personnel at the boarding gate. Our staff members courteously asked these passengers to disembark. One passenger acquiesced to this request," the airline said in a statement sent on X.

The company said the events in the clip were distorted by the other passengers who were not alive to the underlying matters.

"A misapprehension arose among the standby passengers, leading to the distorted belief that their seats had been allocated to a VIP. This is not the case, and the circulating video does not reflect the true sequence of events," it said.