Slaimankhel and his wife have received a Qantas Group travel ban. Photo / Supplied, Unsplash
Slaimankhel and his wife have received a Qantas Group travel ban. Photo / Supplied, Unsplash
After a viral TikTok video of a raging passenger and wife made headlines and saw them banned from the airline, two statements have been issued, telling two very different stories.
On October 21, Nine News posted a TikTok video of a man arguing and swearing at Qantas crew members on a fully boarded plane.
The man was soon identified as rugby player Zakir Slaimankhel, who arrived in New Zealand as a refugee from Afghanistan and was the leading try scorer for Afghanistan at the Asia Rugby Sevens tournament in August.
Slaimankhel was booked to fly from Bali to Sydney on October 19 with his wife and three children, who are aged under 3.
After multiple requests for comment, Slaimankhel responded to the incident on Facebook.
"Due to media messaging and requesting a comment from me and the fam daily we have decided to let everyone know," he wrote on Monday, October 31, at 11 pm.
After two weeks in Bali, the Slaimankhel family were booked on flight QF44 to Sydney, he explained.
"Unfortunately, the enjoyment of our trip was short-lived due to the appalling customer service and behaviour displayed by Qantas staff towards my family," the post read.
Slaimankhel eventually responded via a Facebook post. Photo / Facebook
Slaimankhel went on to detail several interactions with the Qantas staff that he believe were racially motivated and left him and his wife feeling "belittled" and "disgusted".
After an extensive review of the events, Qantas "strongly denies" that its staff acted in such a way.
"Qantas takes allegations of this nature raised very seriously and we will not tolerate any unlawful discrimination on racial, ethnic or any other grounds," the airline said in a statement.
According to Slaimankhel, staff left their children's pram outside the plane, refused to help find a place to store it and accused Slaimankhel's wife of blocking a bathroom door, and then hitting another passenger with the bathroom door.
At one point, a crew member allegedly referred to Slaimankhel's wife as "people like you with that head thingy", referring to her hijab.
"The behaviour of the staff members made her feel extremely humiliated and distraught," said Slaimankhel, adding that his wife began shaking and crying as she returned to her seat.
According to Qantas, staff did not make these comments nor did fellow passengers witness them.
"Our staff also deny making any inappropriate comments regarding the passengers' attire. This has been supported by other passengers who witnessed the interactions," they said.
In addition, Qantas claims the family were abusive and intentionally intimidating towards the staff on several occasions.
"These passengers were removed from the aircraft after verbally abusing our crew a number of times prior to the flight departing Bali," they said.
Despite acknowledging a challenging delay to the departure, Qantas maintained customer and crew safety was a priority, so no abusive behaviour was tolerated.
Following a review of the incidents, Slaimankhel and his wife were issued a no-fly order with Qantas Group airlines.
Slaimankhel maintains that the TikTok video of his response was "character assassination" that lacked context.
“I was reacting to the provocation of staff who were treating us as flight risks and heedless to our concerns,” he said.
