Passenger removed from flight after confrontation with Ivanka Trump

NEW YORK: A passenger was removed from a JetBlue Airways Corp plane at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Thursday after verbally accosting Ivanka Trump, the website TMZ reported.

Airline personnel escorted the man off the plane after he railed at US President-elect Donald Trump's daughter, TMZ said.

Ivanka Trump was en route to Hawaii for a vacation with her family, according to an ABC News report on the incident.



TMZ said the passenger told Ivanka Trump, "Your father is ruining our country," then continued, "Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private."

TMZ's article was accompanied by a picture of a woman in an aircraft who strongly resembled Ivanka Trump.

In an email, JetBlue confirmed that a passenger had been taken off the plane.

"The decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly," the airline said in response to questions about the alleged confrontation. "In this instance, our team worked to re-accommodate the party on the next available flight."

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Donald Trump and his family are spending the Christmas holidays at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

Reuters was not able to identify the passenger who was removed, but a Twitter user cited by TMZ said her husband was going to confront them at the airport.

"Ivanka and Jared at JFK T5, flying commercial," wrote Matthew Lasner (@mattlasner) in the since-deleted tweet. "My husband chasing them down to harass them. #banalityofevil."

Jared Kushner is Ivanka Trump's husband.

Lasner did not respond to requests for comment directed to his Twitter account, which has since been taken offline.

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, which operates Kennedy Airport, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.