A Virginia father is sharing the story of his harrowing experience while flying with his teenage daughter and her friend. Because he was a man traveling with two teenage girls, the Southwest Airlines flight crew expressed concerns of human trafficking.
While the dad admits that he understands what the situation looked like, he thinks protocols need to change. He is sharing his story to bring awareness to how airlines can combat the problem without harming individuals.
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Their trip took an unexpected turn when the dad used the airplane bathroom.
Dad John Kerrigan, was flying from Denver with his 15-year-old daughter and her 16-year-old friend on Southwest Airlines. The three had been traveling from Las Vegas to their home in Virginia Beach, local news channel WAVY reported.
Flight crew began questioning the teenagers.
The dad explained that when he would get up to use the bathroom during the three-and-a-half hour flight, the flight attendant would ask the girls odd questions.
“She keeps asking if we’re all right and if we know you,” Kerrigan said his daughter told him. “And I said it seemed strange.”
It was about to get stranger.
Suddenly the strange behavior of the flight attendant turned into something much worse when they landed at Norfolk Airport in Virginia. When the plane got to the gate at the airport, the crew told passengers to remain seated.
Three airport police officers came to the back of the plane where the dad and the girls were sitting. “[They said], ‘Sir, would you follow us? We’d like to ask you some questions,’” Kerrigan recalled.
The airport confirmed why the father was questioned.
An airport spokesperson confirmed with WAVY that Southwest called during the flight with a suspicion of human trafficking, naming Kerrigan as the suspect.
While he was getting off the plane Kerrigan explained, “I said, ‘This is offensive.’ I did find it very offensive. I mean, I hadn’t done anything wrong,” he shared. Officers questioned the dad for about 20 minutes — not detaining him or arresting him — before they let him go.
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Kerrigan understands the concern, but it was still an awful experience for him.
Kerrigan agrees that human trafficking is a horrible thing that needs to be stopped, but he thinks it needs to be dealt with differently.
“That was just a horrible way to go about it,” he shared. “We all would like for them to catch child traffickers. That’s a worthy goal. But to humiliate somebody?”
A Southwest spokesman told WAVY that its flight crews receive training so they can recognize the warning signs of human trafficking. While the airline couldn’t comment on Kerrigan’s specific case, it is working to resolve it.