Airlines say they’re overbooking less. Passengers say they’re discriminating more.

One of the most jarring experiences of Nazia Ali’s life began at the end of a dream, 10-year anniversary trip with her husband, Faisal Ali. After almost a week soaking in the ambient romance of Paris in July 2016, the Alis boarded a return flight to their Cleveland home. The short walk to their second-row seats left time to store their bags, remove their shoes, and murmur a few words of prayer asking for safe travel. That prayer ended with “inshalla,” God willing in Arabic. But after 45 min., Ali noticed, the usual orders about electronic devices and tray tables hadn't come. A Delta staffer approached. “ ‘Mr. and Mrs. Ali, I need you to get off the plane with me,’ ” recalled Nazia Ali, a Pakistani-American who wears a hijab over her hair. “He said, ‘Please grab all of your things. You are no longer taking this flight.’ ” The passenger removal that captured national attention this week — one in which law enforcement officers peeled David Dao from his seat and dragged him, bleeding, up the aisle — united Americans in righteous indignation. But cases in which airlines force passengers to surrender their seats are regulated and in a long-term pattern of decline. What appears to be a growing phenomenon — but less closely monitored by regulators — is the kind of passenger removal the Alis say they encountered, one driven by racial, ethnic or religious profiling. While the DoT tracks removals due to full flights, the agency doesn’t log those tied to complaints of discrimination. But advocacy groups say that the number of civil rights complaints filed by people removed after flight crews or passengers raised security concerns related to innocuous conversations in a foreign language or other matters tied to skin color or religion spiked in 2016. That year, passengers filed 94 civil rights complaints against U.S. airlines and those flying into the country, according to federal data. That’s up almost 45 percent from 2015.<br/>