gojko88

It's quite simple, really. If there was a single passenger that was removed from the flight to BUD without having congregated in the galley or refused to wear a mask on the flight from JFK - group booking or not - it's a gross case of discrimination.

Ghoulish

You'd do well not to take the initial reports in which people brazenly lied on camera at face value. It was clearly far more than just "1 or 2".

Do you want the pilots discretion to head off potential problems to be hamstrung?

Do you expect some sort of judicial review, sorting through a hundred plus passengers, in a mass chaos situation, presenting witnesses and evidence prior to flight?

If anyone was unjustly removed from the flight they can pursue damages, but the issue here is whether some latent "nazis" at Lufthansa, in a spasm of WWII nostalgia amongst the staff and supervisors, decided to very publicly attack Judaism. Absurd.

craz

what rock have you been living under? I guess when I was in The Senator lounge upon arrival into FRA a few times and I started to pray in a corner in a near empty lounge, and the attendant came over and said its illegal for me to pray in the lounge its disturbing people and it I dont go out into the hall and pray there she will call the Police, it has nothing to do with AS. there were < 10 people in the lounge of which 5 were sleeping on the sofas and no not 1 went up top her to complain. Her basis was the lounge wasnt for praying, she had no answer but mumbled something when I said since when is it OK to sleep there and repeated her threat to call the police. I told her to go ahead and I will deal with them when they get here and then mumbled how you people shouldnt be in here any way

from the sound of things the vast majority of the Jewish passengers were following the rules and for some unknown reason the crew it seems made it out as if all of them werent or maybe the capt came to that conclusion. The crew should have taken the names of the offenders and seat #s and reported them and not simply the whole bunch. What about those who happen to be on that flight and wasnt a part of either of the 2 groups they too were thrown into the grouping

I guess its OK if a black person acts up a flight to ban all the other blacks who happen to also be flying since they are of the same color as the offender they must be together and will therefore cause trouble to get even on their next flight/s

I can send you to a couple of 3* hotels in ZRH where when I went in and asked if I could look at a room as I liked the location better then where I was staying I was told sorry all of our rooms are soldout for the next 100 years, go away, if I didnt have a yamulka on my head I wouldnt have been told that.

Next time your in Germany or ZRH Amsterdam, Paris London etc etc walk around wearing a yamulka and then I hope you live to come back here and apologize

olive_b

You crack me up. Sorry the word racism triggered you in my original reply. I will place a trigger warning for you next time so you can keep your eyes closed to the realities of this world. I'm going to now disengage from this conversation. It's going nowhere.

To the OP, I see your point and feel for what these poor people went through. Some of them deserved penalties but as others have mentioned not collectively and not in the manner they did it. This should be a proper learning experience that hopefully LH and those who misbehaved on the flight recognize and grow from.

I have nothing more to add to this exchange.

daisyatl

The black person analogy doesn't really work as well here. Here you do have people who were sort of traveling together. Left JFK on same flight. Same connection. Headed to same event. Not that that changes matters so much. Maybe two tour groups or two sports teams... After all, a couple who booked separately were allowed to board. Maybe if I was traveling on the same flight as a sports team but I am not on the team. Just a fan. And perhaps wearing a hat but not uniform. Maybe I would be allowed to board.

None of this is to defend any actions. We just don't know enough at this point. And English is obviously a second language for that agent. I would not pin everything on her or what she says. Someone made a decision. Probably a bad one. But not clear why...

craz

Not exactly , I believe there were 2 different tour groups only thing in common their destination(besides being religious Jews) and there were also religious Jews on the same flights going to the same destination that had nothing to do with those 2 tour groups All 3 groupings were denied boarding to the BUD flight for 1 simple reason they were religious Jews who flew on flight XYZ from JFK

I agree with your last conclusion and whom ever made the decision to ban all the religious Jews did so on what was reported to them which was most likely wrong info and the agent was simply saying what she was told

Ryu2

Regardless of behavior of the pax, if the LH employee used the word Jew, that's crossing a line. Especially given they are the German flag carrier. They should have just described them as "non-mask wearing pax" and leave "Jew" out of it!

If Black pax misbehaved on DL in ATL, and they used the word black it would also be bad PR for the same reason -- past historical sensitivities!

hp12c

Yes, the blogger is Jewish. But it is no more a Jewish-run blog than Live and Let Fly or One Mile At A Time are Christian-run blogs. It may seem a minor distinction, but calling something a "[insert religion]-run blog" implies that it is controlled by a certain religious organization, which in the case of the Jews is an old and tired trope.

I don't get the sense that you were trying to communicate anything other than surprise at learning something new, and I am not trying to drag you in any way, but language matters.

TPJ

Data point: the other day I flew JFK-WAW with LO. There was a large group of Hasidic Jews connecting to KSC. Masks were not a problem as LO does not require them (all COVID restrictions were removed in PL). F/A's allowed very small groups (I assume from PY) to pray in C galley (I flew in C) and asked them to return to their seats when C breakfast service started - they obeyed. I do not believe they bothered anyone.

BTW - https://viewfromthewing.com/the-mask...ving-on-board/ (do now want to start yet another mask discussion, but an interesting read)

craz

and thats what I still dont get, LH is known you MUST up, so why book a group tour on LH when you know that many folks in the general group are against masking up and Id like to know if any of the TAs made it known to each person that they MUST be masked while on LH, if not then I put a large chunk of the blame on the TAs for not informing their clients beforehand in case they were against masking up. However that doesnt get LH off the hook for how they grouped everyone into being together in 1 group which other then being religious Jews they werent 1 group

friedablass

Exactly how many (give us a number please) is it that were causing problems?

hugolover

LO is a very Jewish-friendly carrier. Just like Poland itself. Some of Basia’s best customers.

Flights can be 90%+ Hasidic Jews on PL-TLV. B737 have experienced Pursers who know how to accommodate pax.

While LO is in no way an ethnically diverse carrier perhaps their history compensates for what with LH is is much needed diversity with their crew. The issue of LH racism crops up once in a while here on the forum.

SUPERTRAVEL

I agree. Had this been groups of coal miners all wearing their coal mining hats, it would probably have been ok to refer to the groups as coal miners. It still would have NOT been ok to penalize everyone wearing a coal miner hat just because of it if they were not one of the ones refusing to wear their mask. While there are no laws against discrimination against coal miners, there certainly are laws against religious discrimination. And anyone working for Germany's flag carrier should be ultra-sensative to that. This was a horrible incident anyway you look at it for the passengers involved and for LH. Horrible handling.

Kyle Friedman

does this mean my first class flight next month will be less crowded? that would be cool

chris63

Looking at the evidence so far, that sums it up nicely