Lufthansa denies boarding to Jews, fined $4 million

[unicorn]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-imposes-4-million-penalty-against-lufthansa-over-treatment-jewish-passengers-2024-10-15/#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C Oct 15 (Reuters),Transportation Department said on Tuesday.

"Lufthansa (LHAG.DE), opens new tab has agreed to pay a $4 million penalty for allegedly discriminating against Jewish passengers who were trying to board a connecting flight in Frankfurt in May 2022, the U.S. Transportation Department said on Tuesday. Lufthansa prohibited 128 Jewish passengers, nearly all of whom wore garments generally worn by Orthodox Jewish men, from boarding a connecting flight in Germany on the basis of alleged misbehavior by some passengers, the Transportation Department said. Although many of the passengers did not know each other or were not traveling together, passengers interviewed by DOT investigators stated that Lufthansa treated them as if they were a single group and denied all of them boarding for the alleged misbehavior of a few, DOT said...". Bad PR for the German carrier 😬. Left out of the story was what the "alleged misbehavior" was. That seems like an important part of the story. Did they refuse to wear seatbelts? Drink too much kosher wine? Also makes one wonder why they couldn't have simply identified the unruly (?) passengers. They must have known where they were sitting. I'd surely like to know the details. It seems crazy at first glance. 

[Riobard]

The fine is a later chapter in a story about outrageous treatment. Trying to put the pieces together. It appears that the crew reported to airline security that there were some passengers exhibiting noncompliance in that they congregated standing up as opposed to the crew preference that they be seated, and there may have been some noncompliance with respect to a mask mandate at the time. No acting out as such, though I’m not sure that grouping in the exit space whether it be prayer, cheerleading practice, or hopscotch is a very good idea. Most of the large number of Jewish passengers on the short-haul flight were headed to a pilgrimage.

Story at the time posted below.

[Riobard]

https://www.dansdeals.com/more/news/airline-news/outrageous-german-airline-bans-jews-flying-lufthansa-supervisor-jewish-people-mess-made-problems-everyone-pay-couple/

[Riobard]

It gets even better. YouTube had apparently banned the video because it interpreted the content as disallowed “hate speech” rather than seeing it as an example of discrimination that should be aired. Brilliant. It’s obvious the airline representative was being called out.

[unicorn]

51 minutes ago, Riobard said:

https://www.dansdeals.com/more/news/airline-news/outrageous-german-airline-bans-jews-flying-lufthansa-supervisor-jewish-people-mess-made-problems-everyone-pay-couple/

Thanks for the info. The actions by Lufthansa, given this new information, seem particularly egregious, for a number of reasons. This seemed to be a case of selective enforcement of what were, at the time (May 2022), highly outdated masking requirements (which most airports and airlines had already abandoned, though not Lufthansa, obviously):

"...They told me that there was zero mask enforcement in first class and that one of the first class flight attendants was not wearing her own mask for most of the flight. Passengers in first class didn’t wear masks for most of the flight and weren’t asked to. From talking to several passengers in economy, it seems like there were a couple of isolated masking issues in economy class, both among some visibly Hasidic Jews as well as non-Jews. It’s a shame that they flouted the rules, but it’s unclear why those few passengers weren’t singled out for punishment as would happen on most airlines in the world...".

It also appears that many passengers who were not wearing Hassidic garb were also effectively not wearing masks (it was still the accepted belief at the time that masks were effective in reducing transmission, but obviously not with the mask hanging around your chin and not covering the nose):

Strange that the blurb from Reuters didn't discuss the actual issue at hand, but given the information in the article provided by @Riobard, it's clear that anti-Jewish sentiment still has its place among some Germans at Lufthansa.

[unicorn]

1 hour ago, Riobard said:

...I’m not sure that grouping in the exit space whether it be prayer, cheerleading practice, or hopscotch is a very good idea...36.27 MB

This is not realistically an issue when the plane is in flight. I'm very atheist, so I personally find the beliefs and actions of Hassidic Jews farcical and almost clown-like, but I respect the rights of others to practice and behave according to their own beliefs, as long as their actions don't impinge on my own rights and beliefs. It looks like those believers did their best to be out of the way of others, i.e. not blocking the aisles. I may look at them and silently snicker to myself, but I feel I have no right to dictate or condemn their behavior when they're obviously doing their best not to be obtrusive. 

[vinapu]

5 hours ago, unicorn said:

Strange that the blurb from Reuters didn't discuss the actual issue at hand, but given the information in the article provided by @Riobard, it's clear that anti-Jewish sentiment still has its place among some Germans at Lufthansa.

 

no need for such sweeping and inflammatory rhetoric.

sounds like " it's clear that anti blacks sentiment has it's place in ( insert name of any American city ) police force.

or " it's clear that anti-Israeli sentiment still has its place among some students ( insert name of one of many American universities ) campus.

They are racists and anti- Semites everywhere and it's shame on human race but time is coming that saying bad word about say, Jamaican bus system or dirty toilets at Haifa railway station will be taken for face value and not as expression of racism or antisemitism.

Years ago while flying from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro our group of 7 congregated for a talk near one exit aboard of flying coffin DC-10. KLM personnel asked us to disperse citing loud talk (it was daytime ) and concern about aircraft balance ( kidding you not). 

[unicorn]

2 hours ago, vinapu said:

no need for such sweeping and inflammatory rhetoric.

sounds like " it's clear that anti blacks sentiment has it's place in ( insert name of any American city ) police force.

or " it's clear that anti-Israeli sentiment still has its place among some students ( insert name of one of many American universities ) campus...

Obviously, saying that anti-Jewish sentiment still has its place among SOME Germans at Lufthansa is neither "sweeping" nor "inflammatory," but simply factually correct. And yes, there are anti-black sentiments among SOME police and anti-Israeli sentiment among SOME students. Only an abject fool would deny that. Obviously, the US Department of Transportation, after investigating the matter for over 2 years, agrees with me (and not with you). One cannot address a problem without identifying it first. Sticking one's head in the sand would be a rather bird-brained reaction. Thankfully, Lufthansa has given its staff additional training in this matter.

[vinapu]

28 minutes ago, unicorn said:

Obviously, saying that anti-Jewish sentiment still has its place among SOME Germans at Lufthansa is neither "sweeping" nor "inflammatory," but simply factually correct.

ok, not sweeping but still inflammatory. Factually correct doesn't mean right ( telling your neighbour she look ugly is factually correct but not right for example )

That's the reason our membership decided not to join discussion on the topic (so far ).

fact that investigating such simple, 1 off  matter,  took 2 years testifies that all issue is kind of hot potato nobody wants to touch.

[unicorn]

I must give you credit for being man enough to backtrack on your previous post, @vinapu. 👏 Some people will stick to their guns after having written some pretty ridiculous stuff, perhaps after a few drinks (?). Admitting an error is not a sign of weakness, but rather of wisdom and open-mindedness. Respect. My neighbors on both sides are beautiful, albeit a septuagenerian on one side and an octogenarian on the other. I suspect (but don't know) the reason the investigation took so long was that  Lufthansa was stonewalling on providing the information, which was obviously shameful and showed the airline in a terrible light. I suspect the DOT needed to threaten further legal action. Hopefully some lessons were learned. 

For what it's worth, I also don't think my post was inflammatory either. Even if a problem does not necessarily represent a systematic bias in an entire airline or system, it needs to be addressed nonetheless. I marched for George Floyd even though I don't think that the actions of the few police officers who murdered him represent the entire police force. I don't think I was being inflammatory then, either. You're big enough to admit to your mistakes. Most corporations are not, and it took an external investigation to identify the problem at Lufthansa. (Had Lufthansa quickly admitted the problem, and immediately taken steps to rectify the situation, I suspected they wouldn't have faced such a hefty fine)

[Riobard]

18 hours ago, unicorn said:

This is not realistically an issue when the plane is in flight. I'm very atheist, so I personally find the beliefs and actions of Hassidic Jews farcical and almost clown-like, but I respect the rights of others to practice and behave according to their own beliefs, as long as their actions don't impinge on my own rights and beliefs. It looks like those believers did their best to be out of the way of others, i.e. not blocking the aisles. I may look at them and silently snicker to myself, but I feel I have no right to dictate or condemn their behavior when they're obviously doing their best not to be obtrusive. 

I certainly don’t mind the phenomenon of structured prayer in flight and I agree based on the photo image that it was neither unacceptable nor disruptive in this case. It doesn’t nearly make the list of passenger behaviours that invoke in me homicidal fantasies that typically involve a garrotte from behind, there being obvious limits to methods on a plane.

Indeed, there may be some tension between a practice that is religiously obligatory and a context in which dispensation or improvisation is warranted due to obvious obstacles. It turned out to be not a good idea due to the discriminatory profiling of an identifiable yet innocuous and improvising homogeneous group that ensued. Granted, the gathering would not have forecasted such a ridiculous consequence.

I think that the threshold for common sense rule violation is lower in flight. I expect that I’m not the only one with an urgent bladder waiting in line for the toilet and being snapped at if not immediately complying with a seating command due to spontaneous turbulence. The crew constantly making judgement calls. It can go one way or another depending on the attendant, and I won’t back down, but I’m trading off compliance for a need out of my control that must be satisfied.

However, the etiquette of structured group prayer is not without precedence because accommodation is made in most large airports and on some airlines inflight. I think that the rule of thumb in the absence of structured in-flight accommodation is to pose the request to a crew member for improvised dedicated space accommodation, or at the very least communicate the intent to gather unobtrusively for formal prayer and alert the crew member regarding the playbook details. It would be impossible to determine whether the request, if in fact denied, or responded to with “we’d prefer not due to safety considerations”, was tinged with discrimination. But the group would have a solid secularly governed basis for a hall pass and would not be restricted from substituting an improvised version of the religious observance, probably seated. It appears (not sure) in this case a complaint made it to the cockpit and a compliance order was made regarding seating, perhaps unheeded, or the profiling had already been irreversibly anchored.

Surely any revision in airline best practices, while condemning the unique cascade effect in this case based on the incontrovertible discrimination on the part of a few rigid and stupid staff, would need to consider complex decision-making regarding such structured subgroup prayer gathering. It’s not just preventing recurrence but I would think need to formalize inflight religious practice terms of reference. That’s the $4,000,000 question.

All I ever had to do was not eat meat on Friday and not suck cock without the subsequent sacrament of confession. With veg meal options only the second urge must be subdued inflight. 

[Riobard]

I also recall there being a thread on personal injury due to not being buckled in during an unexpected altitude change. I think that any congregate activity that involves a group standing as opposed to secured in seats where possible is going to be frowned upon and the crew potentially backed into a corner regarding what exceptions are legitimate. The general rule seems to be to approximate vehicle seatbelt compliance short of inhibiting necessary movement in practical terms. The seatbelt sign activation differentiates obligation to safety from preferred behaviour that unambiguously promotes good measure safer-than-sorry security notwithstanding the outlier rarity of mishaps. 

[unicorn]

2 hours ago, Riobard said:

...All I ever had to do was not eat meat on Friday and not suck cock without the subsequent sacrament of confession...

Make it snappy! 😄

[unicorn]

12 hours ago, vinapu said:

... telling your neighbour she look ugly is factually correct but not right for example ...

And I don't think that calling attention to objectionable behavior of airline staff is in any way analogous to telling a neighbor's she's ugly (even if she is). Bad behavior, particularly in an organized setting, needs to be addressed so that corrective measures can be taken (so that, hopefully, this doesn't happen to others). Airline staff and police are given wide berths of authority, and this authority and trust can unfortunately be greatly abused. Biases and stereotypes are common, and keeping them in check requires active effort for those in authority. I may personally think Hassidic Jews' beliefs and behaviors are ridiculous, but I have to make the effort to recognize my biases and show them the respect we are all due as human beings. 

[vinapu]

11 hours ago, unicorn said:

I must give you credit for being man enough

I rather take cash

[reader]

Glad to see that US Department of Transportation and its director, Pete Buttigeg, took the initiative in this incident.