Lufthansa hit with $4M fine for harmful treatment of Jewish passengers

Lufthansa has been slammed with a record $4 million fine for the horrific treatment of Orthodox Jewish passengers flying out of New York. The disturbing incident took place on May 4, 2022 when 131 travelers boarded a flight on the German airline at JFK Airport, setting out to Budapest, Hungary, with a stopover in Frankfurt, Germany.

The men were on their way to a memorial event for an Orthodox rabbi when Lufthansa employees banned 128 of them, dressed in distinctive traditional clothing, from boarding their connecting flight due to ‘alleged misconduct of some passengers,’ the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) said. Crew members alleged that during the first leg of the flight, some passengers repeatedly ignored the airline’s mask policy, as German law at the time required face coverings due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Though the large group of men were not all associated with one another, ‘Lufthansa treated them all as if they were a single group and denied them boarding for the alleged misbehavior of a few,’ the agency said on Tuesday. The major penalty, brought on by civil rights violations, is the largest the DOT has ever issued to an airline, the agency revealed. ‘No one should face discrimination when they travel, and today’s action sends a clear message to the airline industry that we are prepared to investigate and take action whenever passengers’ civil rights are violated,’ U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said.

‘From cracking down on long tarmac delays to ensuring passengers are properly refunded, our department has strengthened our enforcement efforts to hold airlines accountable for their treatment of passengers, and we will continue to push the industry to serve passengers with the fairness and dignity they deserve.’ Video of the incident recorded at the time showed the airline’s staff telling the men they were not allowed onboard. A female employee spoke to one of the men and told him that the situation would have been the same if they were ‘African,’ and that because of one passenger on the first flight, ‘everybody has to pay.’

A man then questioned why non-Jewish people were allowed to board the aircraft and they weren’t. ‘Because this is 2022 and this is a western county, so this has to go to upper management because this is like antisemitism,’ he told the staffer. ‘Because the Jewish coming from JFK,’ she replied before he cut her off and said, ‘Oh, so Jewish people coming from JFK are paying for the crimes of a few people?’ ‘Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems…,’ she said. The angry passenger asked: ‘So, Jewish people on the plane made a problem so all Jews are banned from Lufthansa for the day?’ ‘Just for this flight,’ the staffer responded.

‘We find the claim of anti-Semitism unwarranted and without merit,’ the airline said. ‘We confirm that a larger group of passengers could not be carried today on Lufthansa flight LH1334 from Frankfurt to Budapest, because the travelers refused to wear the legally mandated mask on board.’ On May 10, Lufthansa released an updated statement, saying it ‘regrets the circumstances surrounding the decision to exclude passengers’ from the flight, and apologized. ‘Lufthansa and its employees stand behind the goal of connecting people and cultures worldwide,’ adding that ‘diversity and equal opportunity are core values for our company.’ 

According to the DOT, the captain on the first flight out of New York ‘alerted Lufthansa security that some passengers were failing to follow crew instructions and were connecting to another flight to Budapest.’ The agency noted that the airline later ‘failed to identify any one passenger who failed to follow crewmember instructions.’ ‘Noncompliant individuals were not named, and Lufthansa staff recognized that the refusal to transport the entire group could result in the exclusion of passengers that had complied with crew instructions on LH 401 but concluded it was not practical to address each passenger individually,’ the DOT said.

Days after the incident, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt (pictured), a famed Holocaust survivor who was sworn in as Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism in March 2022, told NBC News that the incident left her ‘very concerned.’ ‘[When] I first heard it, I said, “Oh, this must be wrong. Someone must be misreporting this.” And then of course, it turned out to be precisely right — and worse than we even thought,’ she told the outlet. She emphasized the ‘awful irony’ of the dramatic scene is that the Orthodox men were barred by a national German airline, adding that it was a case of ‘classic prejudice’.

Following the incident, the DOT received more than 40 ‘discrimination complaints from Jewish passengers’ who were involved, which prompted the Aviation Consumer Protection (OACP) to open an investigation. The airline told NPR that they have fully cooperated with the investigation, have apologized multiple times. Despite calling the incident ‘regrettable’, the airline has denied that its employees were discriminatory, a consent order detailed. Lufthansa said they are committed to training their staff ‘to address antisemitism and discrimination.’ ‘Lufthansa is dedicated to being an ambassador of goodwill, tolerance, diversity, and acceptance,’ the airline added. According to NPR, the airline will pay $2 million, and the DOT will credit Lufthansa another $2 million for the compensation the agency had to pay to the affected individuals.

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