Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr has apologized for the mass denial of boarding of Jewish passengers, pledging to learn from the incident and assuring a prominent Rabbi in Berlin that such action is contrary to Lufthansa’s core values.
Lufthansa CEO Apologizes To Rabbi Of Berlin For Treatment Of Jewish Passengers, Suspends Employees Involved During Investigation
With the mainstream media picking up this story and broad disgust over Lufthansa’s apology, Spohr held a video meeting with Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, a Rabbi of Berlin’s Jewish Orthodox community.
DansDeals, which broke this story and has done a superb job of holding Lufthansa accountable, received a brief video clip from the meeting:
“Rabbi Teichtal said that the CEO’s apologies sounded genuine and personal, a far cry from the generic ‘apology’ that was published by the airline yesterday which ignored anti-Semitism and merely ‘regretted the circumstances.’ That non-apology also referred to the passengers on the flight as a group, when in fact there were many passengers who booked their own travel and were also denied boarding to Budapest.
“Mr. Spohr said that anti-Semitism has no place in his airline, but with over 100,000 employees, it’s always possible there are some bad apples. He said that point-blank this incident should never have happened and that employees involved have been suspended, pending the airline’s investigation into what happened. The CEO did not specify exactly which employees have been suspended.”
More importantly, Spohr indicated that Lufthansa’s investigation already revealed that the mass denial of boarding was not appropriate and that such treatment represents the antithesis of Lufthansa’s mission to connect people and cultures.
I will wait until an investigation is complete to make a final judgment on the matter, but that won’t stop me from pointing out what appears to be a clear-cut case of disgusting discrimination, with travelers lumped together merely on the basis of their appearance as Orthodox Jews. In a society that embraces human dignity and the equal justice, such conduct must be condemned.
CONCLUSION
While not an official apology, Spohr has met with a prominent Orthodox Rabbi in Berlin via video conference and plans an in-person meeting next week. According to Rabbi Teichtal, Spohr’s apology appeared sincere and unequivocal. As an investigation continues, Lufthansa has suspended at least one employee involved.
image: Lufthansa
“In a society that embraces human dignity and the equal justice, such conduct must be condemned.” Sadly, the world is degrading before our eyes. People have become very nasty, selfish, rude, etc. which leads to terrible incidents like this. I think the people who were actually violating the rules should also apologize to their fellow travelers. If they had complied, then this shameful incident would not have happened.
Yes, those passengers should apologize. But don’t ban 130 other passengers who have nothing to do with those few besides having skullcaps, side curls, and Jewish sounding family names.
Yes! I totally agree. Luthansa was very wrong and the original non-compliant few were also wrong.
Same thing happened in Brooklyn NY during the height of COVID. The local rise in cases and hospitalizations from the massive public gatherings in the Orthodox community was overshadowed by the labeling of the attempts of the mayor and police department to control these events as insensitive and anti-Semitic.
I wish DansDeals and other travel websites would display this level of outrage when Muslims and Sikhs are racially profiled by airlines and airport security.
Similarly, DansDeals was more outraged by Jewish passengers missing their connecting flight than IDF shooting and killing Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during a raid in the West Bank. We should be more outraged by a senseless killing than a missed flight.
What does the IDF have to do with Lufthansa banning pax from flying. Sounds like you’re guilty of painting everyone with the same brush.
Regarding the death of that journalist: A. You don’t know who killed her, but are super fast to accuse Israel, although it was the terrorists who were shooting indiscriminately and there is a video of them yelling, “we got a soldier (presumably they saw the helmet the journalist was wearing and gleefully shot her). B. Israel wants to investigate, the PA doesn’t want that to happen. 3 guesses why, and the first one doesn’t count. C. Even if an Israeli soldier accidentally killed her, that doesn’t warrant your sympathy for the the terrorists who caused her to be killed and who seek to kill as many innocent Jews and Israelis as they can, while here in the worst case scenario, an Israeli soldier may have accidentally killed a journalist while he or she was under fire from terrorists. If you sympathize with the terrorists, well, that shows your true colors.
“Even if an Israeli soldier accidentally killed her”
Nothing accidental about it. It was targeted for sure by an Israeli soldier.
As a Hasidic Jew, I have been profiled and faced sometimes egregious anti-Semitism in my travels. I rarely post about it, any visible Jew knows what comes with looking the part. There is a recent thread on the DD forums where basically every visible Jew agrees they have experienced open anti-Semitism, https://forums.dansdeals.com/index.php?topic=128132.0
Banning 130 Jews from flying for 24 hours solely because of the actions of a few is something that I have never heard of before and was truly shocking. Is there a similar travel story with any other race or religion this century?
I don’t think it’s known who killed Shireen yet? Has there been a joint investigation or video evidence? It’s truly tragic no matter what happened, though I note that I also haven’t posted about the numerous civilian Jews that have been stabbed and blown up in Israel over the past month by Palestinian civilians. Have you posted about 3 men that were murdered with an axe last week?
I wish for peace in the Middle East, but these stories are simply not in my wheelhouse. If it was aviation related, I’d certainly be writing about it.
Dan,
In 2017, the NAACP issued an advisory warning African Americans to exercise caution when traveling on American Airlines following a “pattern of disturbing incidents. Where was the outrage about that? There were repeated allegations of racial discrimination by AA.
Your investigation revealed a number of troubling things, but I do wish your outrage wasn’t limited to just poor treatment of Jews. All people — African Americans, Muslims, Palestinians — deserve to be treated with dignity. Since you have a platform, don’t you have an obligation to shed some light on that?
Remember the Holocaust related poem:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
And there have been disturbing instances of individual anti-Semitism on planes since the beginning of flight. I get emails from readers all the time about that, but I rarely cover them. Nobody is surprised that there is racism and anti-Semitism in our society and rarely do those cases make the news. That’s not to say those incidents are excusable, but if we wrote about every case of discrimination on a plane, that’s all we would write and talk about all day every day, unfortunately
In this case there was video evidence of an entire plane of Jews being banned due to the actions of a couple. And worse yet, this happened in Germany, which exterminated 6 million Jews less than 80 years ago.
Once again, if you can cite a similar case of aviation discrimination this century against 130 people on a flight with video evidence, please post a link.
Given that you haven’t answered any of my questions, I’ll assume you are just trolling and will respectfully bow out.
Maybe the UK should give 50% of Egyptair to Israel as compensation for what you are saying is the worst incident of anti-Semitism in the past 80 years.
You can’t compare the actions of civilians with that of a fully armed government, especially one that keeps taking the moral high ground.
Nate Nate the journalist was shot by Palestinians. Who do you insist on lying. I am sorry that you hate Jews and love terrorists.
Wolfgang, WashPost is reporting that IDF killed the journalist. Do you have a news link that says otherwise?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/11/israel-jazeera-journalist-jenin/
“JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank — Israeli forces killed a Palestinian American journalist for the Al Jazeera news network in the West Bank early Wednesday, according to the network and the Palestinian Health Ministry. “
This is good PR given the history of germans and jews.
As someone belonging to a community that had no hand in the holocaust i am not weighed down by guilt that jews try to foist willy nilly on everyone. On the contrary jews seem to be carrying out their own “genocide” on Palestinians and they don’t seem to feel too guilty about it. Though of course a lot of the stuff is provoked by Palestinian leaders themselves that use their own people as pawns.
Anyway my advice to people, stop being drama queens.
Son, how many times have I told you to get a job and to stop day-drinking while going on a racist or political tirade on a travel forum. I did not raise you this way and you’ve already embarrassed me and your mother.
@Matthew I am truly sorry for my son’s actions.
Was Rabbi Teichtal on the plane? Why apologize to him?
As a frequent flyer and an Orthodox Jewish woman, I can point out something disturbing. I fly over 100000 miles a year (yes, even during covid ) and have never experienced any sort of discrimination. Yet, when I recently flew LO out of Warsaw and OS out of Vienna (both routes that I’ve flown by myself quite often) and was accompanied by my husband who is visibly Orthodox looking, although not Hasidic, for anyone who gets the subtleties there, he was stopped and harassed, for no reason whatsoever. We weigh our carry-on items, comply with mask mandates, are fully vaccinated, etc,, but since he wears a yarmulka, he is fair game for the fair amount of anti semites who work in these airports. We’ve never encountered any prejudice when traveling together in the Far East. Somehow it seems like Europe and some North American airports (shout out to EWR and YUL) expose us to more bigotry.
So the fact that LH apologized more gracefully the second time is certainly admirable, but education would go a longer way.
No one apologized to Whites who were victims of abusive flight attendants who enforced the draconian mask mandates they could have decided to ignore enforcing. It’s disgusting one group that is 3% of the population and owns a disproportionate amount of wealth and controls every industry from social media to venture capital gets special treatment. In the West only non Whites are allowed apologies and accommodations.
Apologizing to people for enforcing a mandate? Having them ignore enforcing a mandate? How utterly asinine.
The mandates applied to everyone, not one specific group of people. The white fragility is strong in this one…
Dear Amy –
Interesting post. Could you please supply all of us readers with the list of companies in every industry controlled by the unnamed group that constitutes 3% of the population, along with the percentages of shares owned broken down by race, creed, color, national original, and religious affiliation.
Right now your posting falls into the category of “false news.” So I’m merely asking you to provide your hard evidence.
Wouldn’t want to be a Palestinian under any Israeli controls today.But focusing on this case,Certainly jews will find a way to blame Poland for all this,Lufthansa staff were just following orders.