A passenger says Frontier kicked her off for being deaf, but the airline claims something happened before takeoff

A deaf law student and TikToker says she was removed from a Frontier Airlines flight because of her disability, but the airline is pushing back with a sharply different account of events. The dispute, which went viral after the passenger posted footage of the incident on March 12, has since drawn attention to a pending class-action lawsuit against Frontier alleging discrimination against disabled passengers.

As reported by the Daily Dot, Ashley Grey, who posts as @legallyswiftie13, said the confrontation stemmed from a flight attendant’s instructions she could not hear. Grey’s video shows Frontier staff appearing to argue among themselves about whether she should have been removed, while her mother repeatedly pointed out her disability to a gate agent.

Grey’s ticket, her mother stated on camera, clearly noted her deafness. Other passengers on board reportedly confirmed that Grey had simply been unable to hear.

The airline’s version of events is being contested point by point

The gate agent seen in the footage told a bystander, “It’s out of my control,” indicating the flight crew had made the final call. Grey, visibly upset, agreed to leave, saying, “It’s so embarrassing. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Frontier has backed its flight attendant, claiming Grey boarded with an open container she admitted contained alcohol and “rapidly consumed the remaining alcohol in the cup before handing it over,” which the airline said violates both its own policy and federal law. Frontier also stated that Grey’s ticket contained no indication of her disability, directly contradicting Grey’s account and the statement made on camera by the gate agent.

Grey’s attorney, Andrew Rozynski, issued a press release stating that Frontier “chose to go to national media with a fabricated alcohol story that every witness and the video itself contradict, and to publicly deny a disability that its own booking system and its own gate agent had already confirmed.” Grey and her legal team gave Frontier a deadline of March 20 to retract its statements and issue an apology.

The airline did not respond by that date. It comes amid a broader pattern of airline-related incidents drawing viral scrutiny, including a deadly LaGuardia crash investigation that also exposed procedural failures in the aviation system.

TikTok commenters widely advised Grey to pursue legal action, and the video spread to Reddit, where users shared their own experiences with airline alcohol policies. One Redditor described boarding a flight with an open beer and being confronted by a flight attendant after the door closed, resolving the matter by handing it over with an apology, with no further action taken.

Another user flagged a timeline inconsistency in Frontier’s account, questioning why Grey would have been allowed to board at all if the open container issue was identified at the gate, a detail that drew considerable pushback online. Similar to other viral disputes where the official explanation was publicly questioned, including a Florida incident involving roadside missiles that turned out to have a legal explanation most people hadn’t expected.

A class-action lawsuit alleging disability discrimination against Frontier was already pending before this incident came to light.