Jetsetting Dentist Kicked Off American Airlines Flight for Making Trump Joke

Iranian immigrant and ‘celebrity dentist’ Shawn Sadri — “whose bicoastal practice has been visited by actor Aaron Paul, and athletes Jose Canseco and Gabby Douglas” — was kicked off an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York on Sunday after joking to a flight attendant about Donald Trump.

The highlight of American’s Los Angeles – New York JFK service is it’s fully flat, direct aisle access first class cabin.

However this bicoastal dentist to the stars was apparently flying economy.


American Airlines Airbus A321T Economy

He had spent a week in Los Angeles performing cosmetic dentistry “for his Oscars-bound clients” and was returning to his Manhattan practice. He found himself seated beside a young Latino boy (‘6 or 7 years old’) “who was nervous and crying before takeoff.”

He reports that he asked the child, “Are you OK? Are you traveling alone?” but the boy apparently didn’t speak English. The child ran down the aisle screaming.

A flight attendant came over, and that’s when he got into trouble.

[H]e joked: “Maybe Trump is trying to deport him.”

According to Sadri, whose family moved to the U.S. when he was 3, the flight attendant snapped, “Don’t say that.”

…“Fine, you must be a Trump supporter,” he said he told the flight attendant. “And she said, ‘What if I am?’ So I said ‘If you are, you are, but you’re also incompetent and need to do your job. Why am I dealing with this kid?’”

According to Sadri, two other flight attendants came to their colleague’s aid and a 3-on-1 argument ensued.


American Airlines A321T at New York JFK in Winter

And he was bounced from the plane — according to an American Airlines spokesperon “for not following crew members’ instructions” although it’s not clear what those instructions might have been, except perhaps to respect the President.

But don’t worry, folks, the incident didn’t interfere with D0, the flight pushed back four minutes early:

And the dentist, who believes flight attendants reacted to him the way they did because of his Iranian heritage, was moved to the 7 a.m. departure.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. There must be more to this than that. Of course, no one likes to be told they are incompetent. That will do it every time. First class really looks NICE!

  2. I’m with AA on this one. Telling a flight attendant that she is incompetent (because she didn’t attend to a crying boy fast enough???) should be immediate grounds for removal. The dentist showed that he had no respect for her ability to do her job and, therefore, he could not be trusted to follow her instructions for the remainder of the flight.

  3. I agree. Talking back to a flight attendant should get you immediately kicked off the flight. Just like talking back to the police should get you immediately locked up and talking back to people in power should get you immediately “disappeared.” If you don’t like it, go live in some free country like Denmark, because that’s how we do it here, by George!

  4. @tommyleo yes, because there is a straight line that can be traced from saying she is incompetent to being a risk for the flight /sarc you really need to take off your Trumpian blinkers and not go full fascist.

  5. Unaccompanied minor, seated next to a stranger.
    Kids freaks out and it’s the dentist’s fault, of course.

    Typical.

  6. Just when I thought you were going to make it thru an entire day without a single post about Trump. 😉

    Here we have another Liberal sore loser making a scene so he can claim to be a victim of “Trump Induced Xenophobia” (sic). He probably hoped AA would buy that ‘Fake’ claim, and make amends with an upgrade on his later flight. It seems that didn’t happen, but at least he got lots of Nationwide free publicity for his “celebrity” dental practice. Perhaps he learned that from watching Trump get all that free press while campaigning by driving the MSM literally crazy.

    One thing we can all agree upon is that DJT is no joking matter. 🙂

    Last night’s speech was very interesting. What with self-identified “Communist” Van Jones, and Super Liberal Obama fanboy Chris Matthews, both saying that they finally saw Trump being “Very Presidential”. Never thought I’d hear anything like that from either of them.

    Whiney condemnations from folks with Trump Derangement Syndrome posting in 3-2-1….

  7. American Airlines crew react to simple situations by saying this phrase often: “I am going to kick you out of this flight” and it happened to me.
    An AA waitress on a flight from LAX to MIA told me that I could not put my small bag in the closet in between First and Business as I was moved to the middle seat bulkhead on the 777. Originally I had booked 8H, but someone had taken it and I had to be seated in the terrible angled middle seat.
    I asked for her name as she was extremely rude and literally asking me to sit down and shut up. I had to look closer at her ID and she said, that I touched her. A total lie and I was bounced off the flight just like that.
    I was told that my luggage could not be off loaded for on time departure. Because they actually took it from me and place it in the belly of the aircraft. Of course my luggage went to Miami and since it arrived before I did, It was stolen. I still have not seen a penny from AA.
    Waiters and waitresses at AA, UA and Delta always use their false sense of authority and that is why we see so much drama with these airlines and their passengers. Why is that you never read stories like this about Turkish Airlines Flight Attendants, or Qatar, Emirates, Etihad or Singapore Airlines?
    Yes, if a child is running down the aisle, is because a Flight Attendant is not competent about doing her job. Her job is to attend to people and keep the cabin secure, safe & make sure that a child is not lost running around. Also, she should have respected the customer’s opinion and not
    engage herself in conversations about politics.
    Yes, American Airlines, UA and Delta are super racist. I had overheard a Purser at United talking badly and making racial slurs about one of their Iranian-American pilots behind his back. Terrible things, calling him the sand n… names. Although Iranians are Persians and not Arabs. I actually confronted her about this and she told me off as well. She called him a gay Iranian (I sound instead of the E sound as being derogatory) bus driver (referring to the 747 captain on United)…
    That is why I make a point not to fly AA,DL or UA unless I absolutely have to. I do not care about their mileage programs as they are all now revenue based.

  8. The population will eventually learn that jokes/rants are only allowed if they are about the former black president, who was a dictator.

    Not about the new one, who I guess is just a dic.

  9. Sounds like he got kicked off for arguing with the flight attendants (and perhaps freaking out a child) not for joking about the President (and wasn’t the most unfunny Trump joke/aside that I’ve ever heard). His mistake was insulting the FA and then getting his back up. The “anti-Iranian heritage discrimination” angle positively reeks of le esprit de escalier.

  10. Passengers must follow crew instructions. True. Period.
    But what constitutes an instruction?
    Are a flight attendant supposed to dictate every single joke or every single word passengers can or cannot say, merely based on what s/he likes?
    Are crew members Kim Jung-un of their plane?

  11. Everyone ignore the fat redneck Trump bootlicker and maybe he’ll go away. It reminds me of college classes where the girls would get up and move away from the Ayn Rand freaks and other right wing loons. Ever wonder why they’re the side that needs to make up facts?

    And get video of all such exchanges on flights. Make them famous for the rest of their (likely short) careers.

  12. He was kicked off for stupidity.

    He was kicked off for being rude. Boy, I wish more could be kicked off for that.

    He got what he deserved. Entitled creep treating the person who was working like a lesser human being.

    I would love to see more of this. He deserved to be booted. I’m just sorry he was put on another American flight.

  13. After carefully reading the FA’s written statement, and watching the video of the interaction several times, I have come to the conclusion that…

    Oh, wait, we don’t have any of that. Just the assertion of the dentist that it was all based on his “heritage”. I don’t understand how anyone here can come to any conclusion about this story when we only know one side of it.

    Except for Greg, of course, who knows everything about everything and everybody, especially those he’s never met. 😉

  14. An Iranian man scares a Mexican boy. No mention of what race/heritage the 3 flight-attendants were. I assume race was mentioned to make readers come to a judgement. A legitimate reporter who thought race was newsworthy would have also mentioned the race of the other 3 parties involved. Disclosure: I am Caucasian American and the story should have mentioned the race/nationality of all 5 people, or not mentioned race at all.

    My next comment is directed to Claudio: What do you mean by “I sound instead of the E sound as being derogatory”? (The word was Iranian.) In school we learned to pronounce it this way: “eye-rain-ee-unn”. Is that the correct way to say it?

  15. Form the meager information provided, I agree with you Tom. Most of these folks are on power trips (I don’t mean the dentist)!!!

  16. His “Iranian heritage”? You mean, Iran, the country that kills gays and throws acid in the face of women? He deserves to be thrown off the flight…..he can go on Iran Air, one way.

  17. Sounds like the dentist:
    1. Insulted the President,
    2. Indirectly insinuated the Latino boy was (possibly) an illegal, and
    3. Insulted the AA flight attendant.

    Three strikes and you’re out.

  18. It definitely would be nice to throw all dix off the plane. Drunk dix, coarse dix, dix who make lude comments at women/girls, dix who want to be served before anyone else, dix who burp & fart & scratch their crotch in their seat, & dix who scare 6-yr-old boys.

    I KNOW there are 2 sides to every story. This story was written as: “evil Iranian hates on little boy and 3 stewardesses.” I doubt that’s the truth. Unfortunately we’ll never read the true story because truth doesn’t sell headlines.

  19. She’s an anti-dentite

    Kramer: Those people, listen to yourself.
    Jerry: What?
    Kramer: You think that dentists are so different from me and you? They came to this country just like everybody else, in search of a dream.
    Jerry: Kramer, he’s just a dentist.
    Kramer: Yeah, and you’re an anti-dentite.
    Jerry: I am not an anti-dentite!
    Kramer: You’re a rabid anti-dentite! Oh, it starts with a few jokes and some slurs. “Hey, denty!” Next thing you know you’re saying they should have their own schools.
    Jerry: They do have their own schools!

  20. Gary you don’t say “didn’t interfere with D0” the correct context is “didn’t interfere with on-time dispatch/gate departure”. Me thinks you just want to sound sophisticated and airline operations knowledgeable when you really have no clue!

    So funny you use FlightAware to prove your point!

  21. Shawn is a decade old friend of mine. He called me immediately after this happened. He is always gregarious and never offensive. The Trump supporting dinosaur F/A’s working AA292 were on a power trip and it was 3 on 1. American put Dr. Sadri on the very next flight…

    —Justin Ross Lee

  22. @Josh G — you completely miss the point. I’m being sarcastic, about the company-wide push for departures exactly on time at all and any cost, at the expense of customers… which you’d get if you clicked the link.

  23. @ JRL: Dinosaurs? Come on man, be a mensch. There are customers on AA transcons who fly in J/F today with the same F/As they did as UMs decades ago. If a passenger is disruptive they’re subject to removal, and seems he learned since there were no altercations on the next flight. IMO the CSM should have made him wait until the next day.

  24. At the expense of customers? In what world is NOT running on-time better for customers? Receipt and dispatch has gotten much better at DFW and MIA, maybe not at your small AUS line station.

  25. American Airlines is rude and nasty. I applaud the dentist who did nothing wrong. He criticized a flight attendant who had him thrown off for doing so Trump supporting White Supremacists will support his being thrown off as would have the KKK. I’m through with American Airlines

  26. Luke Vander, and what is wrong with insulting a fascist white supremacist “pussy” grabber?

  27. I am posting on my organizations website that u are a trump supporting censor. I will ask my readers to boycott your site. Fight bigotry everywhere Gary, like u care. People like u deserve Trump

  28. For all of you who complain that I criticize the President too much, remember Allen thinks I am “a trump supporting censor”.. huh?

  29. What’s really amazing about this thread is two references to Seinfeld. No Soup for You! and of course Kramer’s rant. Wow! What an impact on our culture that show has had.

  30. Okay, so he makes a child flying solo run away screaming. Then he verbally assaults not one but apparently three flight attendants. I don’t care if he likes Trump or not- the guy was definitely disruptive. It IS the FA’s job to keep order, and starting a long flight with a disruptive passenger is a really bad idea. Your heading is completely wrong here, and I agree with the FAs’ actions.

  31. In breaking news, that “racist, KKK loving” (sic) POTUS just had his nominee for HUD Secretary, the very Black Ben Carson, approved by the Senate today.

    For those who were not one of the 43 Million people who watched Trumps speech to Congress the other night, (25% more than watched the Oscars this year) the very first thing he said was:

    “Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and Citizens of America:

    Tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our Nation’s path toward civil rights and the work that still remains. Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a Nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.

    Each American generation passes the torch of truth, liberty and justice — in an unbroken chain all the way down to the present.

    That torch is now in our hands. And we will use it to light up the world. I am here tonight to deliver a message of unity and strength, and it is a message deeply delivered from my heart.”

    😉

  32. That’s why I don’t fly “tourist” class.
    The dentist should have pony up to fly in the front.

  33. These GD morons need to be banned for life.

    SHUT UP AND SIT THE HELL DOWN.

    No one cares a particle about your idiot half-wit political opinion. No one.

  34. “Dentist to the stars” calls a press conference to announce that he was removed from a flight for scaring a little kid and then scaring him more by telling him the Trump boogeyman was going to deport him. Then he brags about how he called the FA incompetent. God, he must think he is really funny. Worse, people like that believe that everyone agrees with their opinions. They should have let him speak at the Oscars, would have gotten a standing ovation.

  35. Let him be a Dentist to the stars in Iran – see how far he gets working on head without people. It’s about time someone was penalized for saying something bad about Trump, heck for saying something bad about a white person for that matter! Lord knows enough people have lost their jobs and careers because they called a monkey an ape.

  36. Yea AA – good for you, I am switching from my Delta Airlines Visa over to American Airlines Advantage. Allen is obviously a HRC fan, one of those DemLibs who sucks his thumb and cries like a baby when he don’t get his way. You know — one of the real deplorables.

  37. Reference Al’s March 2, 2017 at 11:18 am post “Al says: Luke Vander, and what is wrong with insulting a fascist white supremacist “pussy” grabber?” I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that — HE is OUR President, OUR Commander in Chief! You damn DemLibs were all over it for the last 8 years if someone said something bad about your Muslim president or his wife Michelle — and of course what your Democratic Bill Clinton did IN THE WHITEHOUSE was okay with you bunch of whining hypocrites — I hoped to see a lot more of this kind of action when someone speaks bad about our WHITE president! So FU2.

  38. Certainly is a far departure from the old days of flying when the customer is always right. Kind of sad – I take the AA transcon btwn LAX-JFK at least once a month in 1st and more often than not, the F/A and Purser are less than polite – something one would not expect on a service which AA marketed as returning to the glory days of travel, but something that I’ve come to disappointingly expect today. It does amaze me though that as much as I fly that only once, a number of years ago, has a passenger been removed from the plane.

  39. I’d kick him off also and ban his @ss for life.

    I am getting so tired of hearing about pr1cks on airplanes. I can only imagine what GAs and FAs must go through.

    These self-important schmucks can walk 2000 miles for all I care. Shut the hell up and sit there.

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