"They don't pay me enough to learn Catalan!": shouted at the security checkpoint of Girona airport

BarcelonaA passenger traveling from Girona - Costa Brava Airport to Brussels last Wednesday was shouted at and reprimanded by a security control agent for asking for instructions in Catalan. According to what he explained to ARA and what is also stated in the complaint filed with Aena, after passing through the scanner, the man had to stop to go through the explosive substances control. The agent performing the luggage check asked him "In what language?", to know how to give him the instructions. "Catalan", he said. That's when the shouting started. "I'm not a call center where you press five and I speak the language you want!", she told him. And she shouted towards the other security colleagues "They don't pay me enough to learn Catalan!", and other phrases of this style, with an attitude that the other security colleagues supported.

"During the scan, she stared at me intently waiting for me to answer", the man, who did not take the bait, explains to ARA. The other passengers at the control were foreigners and did not react. The man, who is Italian and has Catalan family, was so indignant that he immediately filed a formal complaint with Aena: "As an Italian citizen who speaks Catalan but does not speak Spanish very well, I simply replied that I speak Catalan", he explained in the complaint. The head of the Airport Services and Quality department responded that he "regrets the situation" he suffered, apologized, and assured that, once the case had been reviewed with the security company, they would take "the necessary measures" if required.

"I have flown many times to Girona Airport and this has never happened to me before", states the man, who lives in Brussels and speaks Italian, English, Catalan, and Spanish. That's why the reaction caught him off guard and he arrived home angry and upset. "I felt that three or four people were against me – he laments–. I didn't intend to provoke, I had simply been speaking Catalan for two weeks, I was in Girona and she asked me for the language without specifying whether she meant Spanish or English", he says.

"I had never felt discriminated against for my language before. Now he knows what it is like to be Catalan", says his partner, who is Catalan, with resignation.