A pensioner who fell victim to vile racial abuse while on a Ryanair flight has tearfully said if the situation had been reversed, she believes passengers would have rounded on her and called police.
Pensioner Delsie Eunice Gayle, 77, has told ITV news she feels “very low” following the shocking attack, which circulated online in a viral video.
Footage showed Ms Gayle being racially abused on a flight from Barcelona to London Stansted on October 19.
The airline had faced a backlash after it chose to move the woman, leaving the unidentified man in his seat.
She told the ITV: “I feel very low. He pays his fare, I pay mine. So why did he abuse me for that? Because of the colour of my skin.
“He should have moved and I didn’t want to sit there and for him to abuse me anymore.”
She added: “Why [is] he treating me because the colour of my skin, that’s how I look isn’t it? Because if I had done that to him I’m sure they would have called the police take away with me.
“Because I know if I do it to him I know everyone on the plane would try to attack me. And because I’m black, I’m sad to say that, they didn’t want to get involved with me.”
Ms Gayle said she would not fly with the budget airline again, as she did not feel respected.
David Lawrence filmed the verbal attack and said he chose to do so because he wanted to the world “to know” what happened.
Footage of the incident posted to his Facebook account has been viewed over 4.5 million times.
Ms Gayle’s daughter, Carol, said she believed the man should have been removed instead of her mother.
She said: “He should be moved or taken off the plane and nothing was done. And I know if that was a black person racially abusing an elderly woman the police would have been involved. It would have been a different matter .”
“When I saw the video I felt like he was the victim, that the way Ryanair were treating it.”
Ryanair tweeted on Sunday that it had reported the incident to Essex Police.
It added: "As this is now a police matter, we cannot comment further."
A spokeswoman for Essex police said on Sunday: "Essex Police takes prejudice-based crime seriously and we want all incidents to be reported.
"We are working closely with Ryanair and the Spanish authorities on the investigation."
