"We are Muslim Americans, and we fly a lot. So we understand there is a lot of scrutiny on us in the first place," Atif said. "But we consider ourselves to be model citizens. We were born here; we went to high school and college here. It was appalling to know that this type of stuff can happen to you."
Even after the FBI cleared the family and their friend, AirTran refused to book them on another flight.
In an earlier news release Friday, the airline said that one of the passengers became irate and made inappropriate comments and had to be escorted away from a gate by local law enforcement.
Irfan disputed that contention. He said no one was escorted from the gate.
"My wife was perhaps irritated but was in no way hostile," Irfan said. "She was very upset that despite being humiliated on the plane, and despite being cleared, we were not going to be allowed to reschedule our flight. That was the last straw, she just couldn't hold her feelings back anymore of being treated like a second-class citizen and having her civil rights trampled on."
Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, called the situation unusual.
"I find it highly unlikely that a Caucasian family [in the same situation] would be subjected to the same type of treatment," Al-Qatami said. The Irfan brothers are of Indian descent.
In recent years, other Muslim travelers have faced similar problems. In 2006, an Iraqi human rights activist was made to remove a shirt reading "we will not be silent" in English and Arabic before he was allowed to board a plane in New York. The same year, six Muslim imams were escorted off a US Airways flight in Minneapolis after they prayed together in Arabic.
The Irfan family incident prompted the Council for American-Islamic Relations to file a complaint Friday with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
But the Transportation Security Administration said the proper protocol had been followed. After passengers are cleared for travel it is up to the airline to seat them, TSA spokesman Christopher White said. "The pilot ultimately has the authority of who flies in his or her aircraft," White said.
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cynthia.dizikes@latimes.com
