Summer Thomann said she wasn’t trying to make a statement, nor was she making a scene.
She was just trying to make a Saturday night flight from Atlanta to Birmingham.
“I thought everything was fine,” the 32-year-old Columbus personal trainer said. “And the next thing I know, I’m being told I’m on Delta’s no-fly list. It was horrible.”
Thomann said she was returning for a week’s vacation in Key West, Florida, Saturday evening, ready to make her 9:50 p.m. connecting from Atlanta to Birmingham when she was informed by a Delta official she would not be boarding the plane.
She said she spent $250 on an Uber ride to Birmingham.
Thomann said she was prohibited from flying on Delta for violation of Delta Airlines COVID-19 mask requirements.
“It was a shock,” she said.
But, by Thomann’s own admission, she received multiple warnings before receiving her ban.
Part of Delta’s booking procedure includes customers agreeing to wear a mask over their nose and mouth on the flight unless they are eating/drinking, are under 2 years old or have a medical exemption.
On the first leg of Saturday’s flight to Atlanta, Thomann said a gate agent told her to pull her mask up from down around her chin. Then, before the flight, the pilot approached her and sat down next to her.
“He said, ‘Do we have a problem?’ I said, ‘No, why?’ Then he said, ‘You have to wear your mask through the entire flight. Are we clear? So you’re going to wear your mask?’ I said, ‘Yes, I will.’”
During the flight, Thomann said her mask may have slipped below her nose a couple of times. She said she also pulled the mask down to eat an apple during the flight. But she didn’t think it was a problem.
“The (flight attendant) was telling people to pull their masks up all during the flight,” she said. “It didn’t seem like a problem.”
But an hour into the flight, a flight attendant approached her with a blue laminated card.
“The card said ‘final notice,’” Thomann recalled. “The flight attendant didn’t say anything. She just handed me the card.”
Two Delta officials met her as she exited the plane.
Thomann captured the exchange she later posted on her Facebook page. At the end of the video, the Delta employee tells Thomann she would be allowed to make her connecting flight.
“I thought that was the end of it,” Thomann said. “But about an hour later, I heard over the intercom for Summer Thomann to meet a Delta agent at her gate.”
Thomann said when she approached an agent, she was informed that she would not be allowed on the flight.
“I told her they had already told me I could fly, but she said the decision had already been made before I spoke to that person, that it was a miscommunication and I wouldn’t be allowed to fly on Delta until the pandemic was over,” Thomann said.
Delta did not respond to requests for information Monday.
Thomann said she was escorted to the terminal entrance/exit by security officers and that a TSA agent spoke with her briefly.
“The TSA guy saw me and said, ‘We need your version of what happened,’” she recalled. “‘Has anything else happened? We have had complaints about you.’”
Thomann said she’s taken four trips since the beginning of the pandemic and has worn a mask each time, although she admits that her mask has fallen below her nose on occasions.
“But that happens to people all the time,” she said.
Thomann makes no secret of her feelings about mask-wearing, however. Her Facebook page contained six posts about face masks since Feb. 9, including a meme that reads “I love facial nudity” and, on a post where a Runners World magazine story said wearing a mask doesn’t harm athletic performance, she commented, “Runners World is dead to me.”
“I really don’t think masks are effective,” Thomann said. “Delta let you take your mask off to eat and drink. Do they think COVID goes away when you are eating and drinking? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Mike Hainsey, executive director of the Golden Triangle Regional Airport, said the airport’s COVID-19 protocols haven’t created many conflicts.
“People have been very good about following the guidelines,” Hainsey said.
Delta Airlines operates all commercial flights at GTRA.
“The times I’ve flown, the mask requirement hasn’t been a problem,” he said. “There are times when the attendants have to remind people to pull up their masks, but it’s like telling people to put on their seat belts or put up their tray table. They are very courteous, but Delta is serious about it.”
Thomann can attest to that.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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