A young family claim British Airways racially discriminated against them when staff refused to let them board despite going through check-in and security.
The Moyo family from Kent were allowed through Schipol Airport in Amsterdam without boarding passes which they believed would be issued at the gate. But when they arrived, Kiran and Dignity Moyo, with their three-month old baby Noah, were not allowed to board the flight home to Gatwick last month. They claim - along with a witness who filmed the incident - that a 'white Englishman' was allowed to travel without a boarding card while they were not.
BA gate staff even called the police, who escorted the Moyos away from the scene.
Mrs Moyo, an NHS pharmacist, was taking a family holiday and they were on their way home from Schiphol to Gatwick on July 20. She said today they were forced to spend £800 on a hotel room after they were turned away.
The 31-year-old said: 'My child and myself were physically assaulted by the gate worker when she attempted to grab my phone, with the intention of deleting contents of my phone.'
It is understood flight delays at Schipol resulted in the Moyo family not getting boarding passes but airport management allowed them to go to the gate where it was expected they would be given passes by BA.
Fellow passenger Joshua Arthur documented what followed. He wrote: 'Due to flight delay, a couple and their three-month-old baby hadn't checked in yet, which resulted in them not getting their boarding passes.
'The same thing happened to an Englishman. The airport staff understood the situation and let them all through security anyway.
'However, at the boarding gate, the British Airways workers let the English man on the plane, but wouldn't let the couple and their baby board - even though the airport staff had already let them through security without a boarding pass.
'Us passengers filmed what happened at the boarding gate for evidence. When the British Airways workers found out they threatened us by saying that we weren't allowed to board the plane, unless they saw us delete the video.'
BA said they have launched an investigation into the incident.
