Scuffle ensues on El Al flight after movie angers haredi passengers

By HAVIV RETTIG GUR
A small group of haredi passengers interrupted an El Al flight to Kiev on Sunday morning with a loud protest against the showing of movies on the flight. The movies in question were nature shows, but the passengers in question demanded that no movies be shown on the flight. "We usually put nature shows on during these flights in order to be sensitive to the passengers' sensibilities," said an airline spokesperson of the incident. "There were some haredi passengers that didn't approve of this, but there were also other non-haredi passengers on the flight." The movies continued to be screened for the duration of the flight and the hubbub subsided. Reports that the protesters violently attempted to prevent the movies from being screened were erroneous, according to El Al. "If the protest had turned violent, we would have called the police. They protested, but then they gave in." The airline denounced the passengers' behavior during the incident, saying the company was committed "to providing service to a wide variety of different sectors."