At the Chicago airport, two men who spoke Arabic were not allowed on board.

This information was announced by the French media, and as it became known to the resource Avia.pro, the passengers of the flight bound for Philadelphia told the airline representatives about suspicious men who were discussing something very violently in Arabic. After checking and identifying the "suspicious" passengers, employees of Southwest Airlines groundlessly refused them to operate the flight.

The management of the American air carrier Southwest Airlines declined to comment on the official version of the incident, citing the right they had to refuse passengers to take off.