DETROIT – A man said he was kicked out of his Spirit Airlines seat that he paid extra for because flight attendants noticed his prosthetic leg underneath his shorts.
Matthew Garza paid extra to sit in the exit row seat during his flight from Houston to Detroit, but he said he was thrown out of the row when flight attendants saw his leg.
UPDATE: Spirit Airlines responds to man kicked out of airplane seat
"There's nothing that would have prevented me from opening that door," Garza said.
Garza said when he wears pants the only sign of his prosthetic left leg is a slight limp. But when he wore shorts on the flight to Detroit, he said he was unfairly treated. Garza said Spirit Airlines employees were nasty in how they handled the situation and acted as if he was incapable because of his leg.
"He came up to me and literally said, 'You can't sit here,' and I was like, 'Why not?' He said because of my left leg," Garza said.
Garza said the prosthetic leg has been second nature to him since he was a young boy.
"When I was nine they amputated it," Garza said.
When he was a young boy, Garza was the victim of a lawn mowing accident at his grandmother's house, and while he walks with a slight limp, it didn't hold him back from playing sports.
"I did shot put, discus and track," Garza said. "I did basketball and baseball. I was a pitcher."
But his leg held him back from sitting in the exit row he paid extra money for. He'd boarded early with his girlfriend, Karlie, because she's a Spirit frequent flyer. He was wearing shorts, so his prosthetic leg was visible.
Garza's 6-foot-2-inch frame ended up in the very back of the plane. He called Local 4 because he said he's gotten nowhere with Spirit Airlines despite sending them an email.
He said if he had been wearing pants, it wouldn't have been an issue.
"They didn't even ask me if I could perform the stuff," Garza said. "They just flat out said I couldn't sit there."
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