A Black passenger who paid nearly $5,000 for a Business Class seat on British Airways Flight BA0194 from Houston to London on September 24, 2025, says he was denied the welcome drink others in his row received. Seated in 9F, he noticed flight attendants were serving champagne to every other passenger, except him. When he politely asked why, a flight attendant said, "Oh, I thought you had been upgraded."
The passenger, who was the only Black person in the row, says the attendant's assumption implied he didn't belong in Business Class.
"She had no way of knowing my ticket type.Even if I had been upgraded, protocol is to offer all business passengers a welcome drink. So she saw me and decided I didn't belong," he wrote a detailed Reddit post.
I paid $5,000 for Business Class on British Airways and the flight attendant decided I didn't belong there.
byu/mmassagetable inBritishAirways
"I cannot explain how small, humiliated, and angry I felt at that moment. I paid the same as everyone else, yet was treated as if I was in the wrong seat. This wasn't about a glass of champagne. It was about bias, assumption, and respect."
The flyer filed a formal complaint with British Airways, demanding accountability instead of a scripted apology, highlighting this incident as one of bias and disrespect. He urged the airline to improve staff training to treat every passenger with dignity, especially when charging premium prices. The post quickly gained attention online, with many users expressing outrage and sharing similar experiences.
A user commented, "It has also happened to me in Club Europe that they didn't have enough meals and asked me if I minded waiting till the end as I had been upgraded, but the champagne was flowing anyway."
Another user wrote, "There is zero difference between full-price, highest booking class business class tickets and someone that gets upgraded. Club World is Club World. There isn't a differentiation. The steward was just racist. This has nothing to do with ticket type, amount, or booking."
A third user added, "Upgrades are almost always either airline elites or employees, who typically get treated better than those who bought the ticket outright, if not exactly the same."
