The Spanish airline Vueling forcibly removed the director of the Kinneret Club Jewish summer camp and approximately 50 children from a flight, according to footage shared on social media on Wednesday.
According to Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli, the children, aged between 10 and 15, were singing songs in Hebrew on the plane. Chikli alleged that the camp director was arrested in a “serious” antisemitic incident.
The children, all from France, are currently in Valencia (where they had been attending the camp) and are awaiting return to France, Chikli claimed.
Some of the teenagers told Spanish Jewish newspaper Enfoque Judío (Jewish Focus) that the crew became hostile to the group once they started singing in Hebrew. The paper cited one of the children’s mothers – Karine Lamy – who said that the staff called the Guardia Civil when the children refused to stop singing, and then called for the children to disembark. When the camp director refused, the staff requested the children’s cell phones; she again refused to comply, leading to the incident shown in the footage.
A passenger on the plane with nothing to do with the group wrote on Instagram, “I was returning from Valencia with my daughter and no one on the plane understood what was happening, because the group got on the plane normally, without shouting – which is rare in teenagers. I insist that they behaved well for teenagers. During the security instructions, they called the police because they mentioned a security problem on the plane... and finally they made the children disembark and took off two and a half hours late for nothing. I mean the kids stayed polite and left the plane calmly.”
A man named as Damien told the French daily Le Parisien that he “didn’t hear any noise or screams. No one really understood what was going on. I was expecting to see someone drunk standing up, but no. Nothing.”
Kinneret Club announced that it was initiating proceedings against the airline following the “purely antisemitic act,” but assured the parents that their children were safe in a hotel, and would return tomorrow.
Vueling says incident not tied to passenger's religion
Vueling, however, released a statement on Thursday saying that the group was removed due to its members’ “highly combative attitude that was putting the safety of the flight at risk.” It added that a group of teenagers mishandled emergency equipment and were confrontational during the mandatory safety demonstration, ignoring cabin crew safety instructions.
The airline noted that actions by on-board staff were “solely in response” to behavior that compromised passenger safety, and were unrelated to the passengers’ religion.
The crew requested the intervention of the Guardia Civil, who decided to disembark the group to prioritize passenger safety.
According to the airline, at the terminal, the group continued to act aggressively toward authorities, leading to one of the group members being arrested.
Vueling is a low-cost airline that operates short-haul flights to 113 destinations across Europe and North Africa. It is part of the International Airlines Group (IAG), formed through a merger between British Airways and Iberia. IAG acquired Vueling in 2012 and also owns the Irish carrier Aer Lingus.
Jewish billionaire investor Bill Ackman pointed out that Qatar owns about 25% of IAG, and asked for the CEO and board of directors to be held accountable.
The World Jewish Congress condemned the incident saying, “Singing in Hebrew is not illegal. Existing as a group of Jewish people together is not illegal.”
This is a developing story.