Airline officials escorted a woman and her husband from a Seattle-bound flight over the weekend after she was filmed castigating a fellow passenger who supports President Donald Trump.
Officials from Alaska Airlines confirmed to BuzzFeed News that a disruptive woman was taken off Alaska Airlines Flight 761 before it left Baltimore.
"The female passenger was insulting passengers in the boarding area and then on board the aircraft," airline officials told the news website. "Several passengers expressed concerns about her behavior. We stand by our employees' decision to remove the disruptive passenger."
Trump supporter Scott Koteskey captured part of the exchange on camera and shared a video of the unidentified woman Saturday on Facebook. He said the woman was seated next to him on an Alaska Airlines flight from Baltimore when she confronted him.
In the video, Koteskey remained calm as airline officials spoke to him and the unidentified woman.
"She has called me names and insulted me just for sitting down in the seat, saying I came to celebrate today," he said in the video.
The woman asks the flight attendant to move Kotesky and seat her next to someone who did not vote for Trump.
"Well, you don't have that right," the attendant answered.
After the attendant left to call over another airline official, the woman turned to Kotesky and continued to vent.
"You pretend you have the moral high ground but you put that man's finger on the nuclear button. That man doesn't believe in climate change," she said, holding her hands up in sarcastic air quotes around the word "believe."
"Do you believe in gravity? Did you know gravity is just a theory?" she asked.
Another flight attendant arrived to tell her to grab her belongings and follow him off the plane. She refused, arguing that she paid for her seat and "(Kotesky) is in my space."
The attendant warned her that she would be escorted from the plane by transportation police if she refused to leave willingly.
"Fine," she said. "I'll be quiet. I'll just drink."
The attendant told her that she wouldn't be allowed to stay on the plane.
"My husband lost his mother. Have some respect," the woman said.
"And I'm terribly sorry for that, but that does not give you the right to treat people the way you've been treating them," the attendant said.
In a subsequent video posted by Kotesky, the woman can be seen getting off the flight to cheers from fellow passengers.
"As the lady was removed, I saw that I was surrounded by black, Latinos, Asians and white, all who had chimed in asking her to be removed and who had defended me," he wrote. "I was touched and moved, knowing later that not all these people were Trump supporters. The black man who took the seat next to me was a registered Democrat, and he and I had a very good discussion about the beauty of free speech and coming together when people insult and commit acts of violence just for having differing views.
"It truly was a great demonstration of America and its people coming together and standing up for one another."
A representative of Alaska Airlines told CBS News that the unruly passenger and her husband were given a refund. They were not rescheduled to take a later flight and will be allowed to book future trips.
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