The U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it issued a $4 million fine to the German carrier Lufthansa—a record fee from the U.S. agency for discrimination.
The department penalized the airline for refusing to board 128 Jews in Frankfurt, Germany, in May 2022. The passengers were traveling from New York City to Budapest, Hungary, “to attend an annual memorial event to honor an Orthodox rabbi,” per the department.
“This order directs Lufthansa to cease and desist from future similar violations and assesses the carrier $4 million in civil penalties,” it stated.
Lufthansa prevented 128 Jewish passengers, “most of whom wore distinctive garb typically worn by Orthodox Jewish men,” from boarding a connecting flight in Germany “based on the alleged misconduct of some passengers,” per the U.S. department.
“Despite many of the passengers not knowing each other nor traveling together, passengers interviewed by Department of Transportation investigators stated that Lufthansa treated them all as if they were a single group and denied them boarding for the alleged misbehavior of a few,” it added. “Today’s penalty is the largest ever issued by the Department of Transportation against an airline for civil-rights violations.”
“No one should face discrimination when they travel, and today’s action sends a clear message to the airline industry that we are prepared to investigate and take action whenever passengers’ civil rights are violated,” stated Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary.
Buttigieg placed the Jew-hatred in a broader context of the department’s work to block airline delays.
“From cracking down on long tarmac delays to ensuring passengers are properly refunded, our department has strengthened our enforcement efforts to hold airlines accountable for their treatment of passengers, and we will continue to push the industry to serve passengers with the fairness and dignity they deserve,” he stated.
The Transportation Department stated that it received more than 40 complaints from Jewish passengers. “During the first flight, the captain alerted Lufthansa security that some passengers were failing to follow crew instructions and were connecting to another flight to Budapest, although Lufthansa later failed to identify any one passenger who failed to follow crew member instructions,” per the department.
“The alert to security resulted in a hold being placed on over 100 passengers’ tickets with a final destination of Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport, which then prevented passengers from boarding their next scheduled flight at Frankfurt Airport,” the department said. “All of the passengers with a hold placed on their ticket were Jewish.”
It added that Lufthansa did not name non-compliant passengers, and the German airline’s staff “recognized that the refusal to transport the entire group could result in the exclusion of passengers that had complied with crew instructions on LH 401 but concluded it was not practical to address each passenger individually.”
Per a 10-page consent order that the U.S. department issued, “a significant majority of the 128 passengers were male. Most wore the distinctive garb typically worn by Orthodox Jewish men (black hats, black jackets, white shirts, black pants and black dress shoes).”
All of the passengers whom the department’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection interviewed “identified themselves as Jewish, and some reported that Lufthansa flight attendants informed them about the requirement to wear a face mask during the flight and to not assemble in the aisles, galleys and emergency exits,” per the department. “The passengers also stated that they did not observe any passengers failing to comply with crew member instructions.”
Every passenger whose itinerary received a High Priority Comment from Lufthansa was Jewish, per the department. “The HPC, which is a feature of Lufthansa’s internal booking system, prevents a passenger from boarding a flight until a gate agent acknowledges reading the comment,” it added.
“Lufthansa acknowledged that the crew of LH 1334 did not have personal knowledge of the situation, and at that time Lufthansa concluded that it was not practical to address each passenger individually,” the department stated. “As a result, Lufthansa prohibited 128 passengers from continuing on to Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport as planned.”
The American Jewish Committee stated that the May 2022 event was “deeply upsetting.”
“Since then, Lufthansa has taken decisive steps to address the situation, including adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, to ensure that such an event does not occur again,” the AJC said. “We commend Lufthansa for learning from its mistakes and moving forward with meaningful actions.”
The Jewish nonprofit added that it signed a memorandum of understanding with the German airline in September 2022 “and committed to develop a module on antisemitism and provide extensive AJC training for airline employees on how to identify and respond to anti-Jewish bias and discrimination.”
“Germany’s Lufthansa airline has been fined $4 million by the U.S. Department of Transportation for discriminating against Jewish passengers, including several Lakewood residents, by prohibiting them from boarding a flight in May 2022 because some passengers weren’t wearing masks,” wrote Shlomo Schorr, legislative director of Agudath Israel of America’s New Jersey office.
“Thank you Pete Buttigieg and U.S. Department of Transportation for holding airlines accountable for discrimination,” wrote Mark Goldfeder, director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center. “I was proud to represent these passengers, and that thanks to our efforts Lufthansa became the first airline to adopt the IHRA definition.”
“Please rest assured, that Lufthansa dissociates itself from any kind of racism or discrimination,” the airline wrote on Tuesday. “We value each customer equally.”
Jurisdiction
“Lufthansa states that it regrets and has publicly apologized on numerous occasions for the circumstances surrounding the decision to deny boarding to the affected passengers from LH 1334,” the U.S. Department of Transportation stated. “Lufthansa, however, denies any suggestion that any of its employees engaged in any form of discrimination.”
The German carrier also “strongly disputes” that the U.S. department has legal authority to enforce the U.S. laws, which the department cited, “on an extraterritorial basis with respect to events that occurred in Frankfort Airport within the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Per the consent order, Lufthansa says that “a large number of the passengers” who were denied boarding “repeatedly disregarded crew instructions to wear face masks, which at the time was mandated under German law due to the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
The airline also says that “certain flight attendants on LH 401 permitted and facilitated praying by small gatherings of passengers during the flight, which the carrier asserts underscores the Lufthansa crew’s lack of any discriminatory feelings or actions toward any of the passengers.”
“Lufthansa states that a large number of passengers (as many as 60 passengers at any given time during the flight) repeatedly disregarded both in-flight public address announcements from the flight deck and in-person crew instructions,” per the order.
The airline says that “in some cases, passengers not only refused to comply with safety and security requirements, but argued with Lufthansa flight attendants and other passengers who courteously reminded them of the obligation to wear masks,” which put the crew and other passengers “in a difficult situation.”
The German carrier states that it couldn’t identify those who broke the rules, because “the infractions were so numerous, the misconduct continued for substantial portions of the flight and at different intervals and the passengers changed seats during the flight.”
“Lufthansa disagrees with the department’s position that the crew could have reasonably identified the passengers at issue,” the order states.
“Lufthansa is entering into this consent order to avoid litigation threatened by the department, despite Lufthansa’s belief that the department lacks jurisdiction over events that occurred outside the United States, and despite disagreeing with the department’s conclusions,” it adds.
