WarSclerotic

Jewish travelers en route to Paris from Barcelona were pulled from the flight on a British airline.

By: Hana Levi Julian Published:

May 8th, 2016

Source: The Jewish Press » » Jewish Travelers Separated and Removed from British Airline in Barcelona

EasyJet cabin
Photo Credit: EasyJet website

A group of Jewish families that included elderly people, pregnant women and children were taken off an EasyJet passenger plane in Barcelona waiting to depart for Paris, according to a report on the European Jewish Press.

One of the passengers, a Holocaust survivor, said the behavior of police who came to take the travelers off the flight was similar to that of the German Nazi SS police during World War II.

The families were removed after the plane had been sitting on the tarmac for more than two hours, waiting for departure. Many of the Jewish men were wearing kippahs, making them clearly identifiable.

They were returning home to Paris after having spent the Passover holiday in Spain, but were removed from the flight by armed Spanish police officers.

Despite the fact that the British-owned EasyJet flight was en route to Paris from Barcelona, the flight attendant chose to speak only Spanish when she told the Jewish group they were being removed from the flight.

When they asked her to speak in French, she declined, saying she could not speak a word in French or English.

One of the Jewish passengers, a 15-year-old boy, tried to use sign language, motioning with his hands to ask what was going on. In response the flight attendance called the Spanish Guardia Civil Police, a passenger told JPUdates.

Another passenger, Franck Ben, described the nightmare in a French-language Facebook post, saying he and others felt like they were being treated like terrorists.

Ben said the police wanted to take away the teenager who had tried to communicate with hand gestures, but his mother intervened and would not allow him to be taken without her coming along.

Police then took all the Jewish passengers from the aircraft and placed them under tight security in the gate area without air conditioning.

Six hours later, they were allowed to board another aircraft, Ben recounted, adding that the staff had changed and included a French-speaking flight attendant.

But the harassment had not yet ended: police attempted to arrest a 22-year-old woman when the group began boarding the aircraft. The woman’s mother begged the police to let her go.

Ben wrote that police would not allow her to board until she first erased all her videos and photos recording their experience at the departure area where they were held.

A spokesperson for the British-based EasyJet airline confirmed the veracity of the incident.

“We would like to apologize to customers for the inconvenience and the delay,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The safety and well-being of passengers and crew is always EasyJet’s priority.”

Police were called, the statement added, “due to a group of passengers behaving in a disruptive manner.” JPUpdates asked the airline about the allegations of the families regarding their separation due to their faith.

The response of the airline’s spokesperson is illuminating: “All of our staff are carefully selected and undergo a rigorous training program to maintain our high level of customer care. To confirm, we have a zero tolerance towards discrimination of any kind.”

EasyJet is a British low-cost airline based at London Luton Airport. It may be of interest to note that Luton’s Labour councillor Aaysegul Gurbuz, 20, was suspended last month over claims that she called Adolf Hitler ‘the greatest man in history,’ according to the April 9, 2016 edition of the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper.

Gurbuz is accused of posting a number of anti-Semitic tweets between 2011 and 2014, including one in 2013 that said ‘the Jews are so powerful in the U.S. It’s disgusting.’

Gurbuz resigned two days later.