UFC star Khabib Nurmagomedov reportedly removed from flight in the US over ‘poor English’

Former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov was removed from a domestic US flight after a flight attendant deemed his level of English to be too low for him to take an emergency exit row seat.

Footage from the exchange shows a stewardess asking Nurmagomedov to either change his seat or leave the Frontier Airlines flight.

Essentially Sports has reported that the exchange took place after a flight attendant approached the exit row and asked Nurmagomedov if he speaks English and whether he would be able to assist passengers in case of an emergency, but did not receive an answer from the UFC star.

In footage from the plane, the stewardess can be heard saying that her flight attendants ‘were not comfortable’ with Nurmagomedov taking the seat, reportedly citing his level of English.

In response, Nurmagomedov argues that the flight attendant’s request was ‘unfair’, and that he was already asked if he spoke English upon checking in to the flight.

He is then seen being escorted out of the plane.

Nurmagomedov later published a picture of his ticket, showing that he was flying out to San Francisco from Las Vegas on 11 January.

Following the incident, Nurmagomedov said on X that the flight attendant was ‘very rude from the beginning, even though I speak very decent English and can understand everything and agreed to assist’.

‘She still insists on removing me from my seat. What was the base for that, racial national, or other one, I’m not sure’, he wrote.

Frontier Airlines later responded to Nurmagomedov’s post on X, saying that they were ‘aware of the incident and are investigating’.

The incident drew criticism from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of the largest Muslim rights organisations in the US, which called on the airlines to ‘quickly and transparently’ investigate the exchange.

In Russia, State Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov also expressed outrage over Nurmagomedov’s presence in the US, saying that an ‘honest Russian man’ should not be taking flights on American planes while Washington is ‘financing the murder, including of his fellow countrymen, in Donbas’, referring to the eastern part of Ukraine that Russia has been attempting to capture for years.

Nurmagomedov, a celebrated MMA star, has been training in the US for years now. He mostly writes in English on social media, where he has 38 million followers.

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