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On Friday, September 1, Hyeri from Girl's Day took to her Instagram to talk about her recent experience while flying with an international airline, Delta Airlines. She complained that her two First Class seats were downgraded without prior notice. Additionally, she was asked to take the next flight if she was unhappy with the seats without any refund for her downgraded seats.
Since the staff at the Airlines spoke in English, she was unable to defend herself well at the moment too. The K-pop idol was evidently upset and displeased with the experience as she warned her followers to be careful if and when they flew with them. Given that the idol specifically mentioned it was an international airline and not a domestic one, hinted that this might be a racist response from the airline and its staff members.
Girl's Day's Hyeri calls out Delta Airlines for its racist and discriminatory behavior towards her
On September 1, soon after her experience with the international airline, Delta Airlines, Hyeri went onto her Instagram to upload stories with long captions, explaining her experience in detail. Given that her tickets were booked well in advance, she was immediately taken aback when she realized that both her First Class tickets were downgraded to Economy Class.
Since it's very unlikely that both seats were downgraded, the idol could already sense that the situation was absurd. However, the situation only worsened when no refund was given to her with respect to her downgraded seats.
She wrote:
"I made my reservation one and a half months ago and even selected a seat in advance, but they downgraded me to Economy Class, saying there were no First Class seats available. The airline told me to take the next flight if I didn’t like the seat and did not even give me a refund. Haha. I booked two seats, how could both be downgraded?"
The caption continued:
"I wanted to say many things but couldn’t express them properly. At that moment, I thought I should have studied English harder. What an absurd experience. You should be careful, everyone. It wasn’t a domestic airline. I hope there are no misunderstandings."
She then uploaded an English version of her Instagram Story in response to the Korean version, in order to share her concerns about Delta Airlines with a wider audience. While the airline initially expressed that they were investigating the issue, they finally released a statement.
In response to Hyeri, the airline stated:
"Usually, in these instances, we ask if passengers would like to fly on the next flight in which first-class seats are available. If passengers choose to sit in Economy, we refund the difference in price. We are in the process of refunding the difference of her seats. We are apologetic to the customer and a customer service manager will reach out to her personally."
Regardless, people are still speculative that her experience or treatment from the airlines was due to the fact that she was Asian and given the fact that the staff members were communicating in English, the incident evidently took place outside Korea. While the issue has considerably settled down, fans continue to criticize and call out the airlines for their discriminatory actions.
