Black female traveller left feeling "distressed" and "stereotyped" after prebooked 3am airport shuttle driver refuses to take her
The woman claims the driver told her she had an "attitude" which left her feeling "stereotyped."
Black female traveller left feeling “distressed” and “stereotyped” after prebooked 3am airport shuttle driver refuses to take her
Kassandra Gordon says she felt “humiliated” after she was forced to leave the coach at Stansted Airport.
STORY BY MELISSA SIGODO
JULY 5, 2026
A Black female traveller says she was left feeling “distressed” and “stereotyped” after a coach driver refused to take her on a prebooked airport shuttle in the middle of the night.
Kassandra Gordon from London claims that after travelling back from a holiday at 3.30am on July 3, as she boarded a Flibco coach at Stansted Airport - the driver told her she wasn’t first in the queue and then refused to take her from Essex to London stating that she had an “attitude.”
Kassandra who works as a jewellery designer says that the driver who she believes was white had told her to let an Asian couple onto the coach before her.
However, she says the pair then corrected him and confirmed that she was the first in line.
But after the solo traveller showed the driver her ticket and boarded the shuttle, she claims he told her she “had an attitude” and that he would not turn on the engine until she got off.
Speaking exclusively to The Community Reporter, Kassandra said: “It was humiliating and distressing because how do I get home safe? I didn’t want to be stranded.
“I don’t know why he would do that to me. Knowing that it’s late. Knowing that I did not do anything.
“I’m asking him, ‘why? What did I do?’, and he couldn’t give me an answer. And I said, ‘I’m going to stay here, because I don’t feel safe if you leave me out there.’
“I said to him, ‘if you have a daughter, you wouldn’t do that to them. You wouldn’t just kick someone like a daughter at 3 o’clock in the morning.”
“He said, [I had] an attitude, when I hardly spoke to him.”
Kassandra says that she felt racially “stereotyped” by the driver.
She said: “I picked up on the microaggression [from the driver]. That’s when I felt it was racial because there’s was no evidence to show that [I had an attitude]. Why would I have attitude?”
Kassandra says that she felt the driver was “embarrassed” when passengers confirmed that she was the first in the queue.
She added that after he said she had an “attitude”, she already knew where the situation was heading.
Kassandra said: “The driver felt embarrassed or fragile because he was corrected.
“How can I have attitude towards a person who I barely spoke to? My first interaction with him was to show him my ticket.
“[I just thought], ‘I see where this is going and I’ll just be quiet and call the police.”
But once police arrived, Kassandra says ‘the law was not on her side’ and that officers informed her that the driver had the right to refuse her entry and that she would need to exit the coach.
Essex police say they were called to a “dispute between a bus driver and passenger” and that following discussions with both parties at the scene “no offences were identified.”
According to the Flibco’s terms and conditions listed on their website, drivers reserve the right to refuse passengers entry if they do not comply with a number of rules they set out.
In a video Kassandra recorded of the incident, she can be heard asking police why she had to “inconvenience” herself by taking another coach, to which an officer can be heard saying, “it is what it is. Ultimately, it’s his decision and we can’t force him to let you on the bus.”
Kassandra claims that when police questioned the driver on why he couldn’t take her, she heard him say he “had a feeling” about her and that he was “uncomfortable.”
After being forced to leave the shuttle feeling “distressed”, Kassandra claims that Black stewards wearing Flibco vests began mocking her in childlike voices saying, “Oh, she thinks I’m racist”, which she says made the situation worse.
She said: “I felt mocked and even stupid. They started laughing at me. Mocking me.
“I think about my safety a lot when I’m out and about travelling because I have to. Then you come back home and this is what you’re met with.”
Kassandra says she was able to get to London after an off-duty coach driver who had witnessed the incident told her to board the coach he was taking.
As soon as Kassandra arrived home, she says she contacted Flibco’s CEO Tobias Stüber on LinkedIn after feeling that the situation wouldn’t be taken seriously by staff she spoke to.
She says that the CEO then called her and said that an investigation was underway.
The jewellery designer also posted a video of the incident on social media which the coach company’s team left a comment under.
On Instagram, Flibco wrote: “We deeply feel the concerns of everyone who is driving awareness towards this incident and we hear you. Our CEO Tobias spoke to Kassandra Gordon shortly after in a call personally.
“Since yesterday, we continue to investigate the situation with the highest priority. Our teams have spoken to the driver, the coach controller have reviewed the situation. Any kind of racism, discrimination or bullying has no place at Flibco and our partners.
“Drivers who don’t meet our high passenger safety standards will be immediately suspended from operations. Flibco will stay safe for every passenger who trusts on us.”
The Community Reporter approached Flibco and its CEO Tobias Stüber for comment, but they did not respond.
We approached Essex police and a spokesperson said: “Our officers were called to a dispute between a bus driver and passenger at Stansted Airport’s Terminal Road North at about 3.35am on Friday 3 July.
“Following discussion with both parties at the scene, no offences were identified. While this was not a criminal matter, our officers identified a second bus to assist the passenger in being able to complete their journey safely.”