Budget airline JetBlue called the police on a Jewish passenger and accused him of ‘causing a disturbance’ after he objected to a flight attendant’s Palestine flag pin, the aggrieved flier has revealed to DailyMail.com.
Paul Faust, 54, said he quietly made a complaint about the pin to a supervisor on the plane – but when he landed a uniformed official demanded to see his ID, claimed he caused a disturbance, called the police – and then then canceled his return flight.
Faust, who is Jewish, is accusing the airline of ‘blatant antisemitism’ over the incident.
A JetBlue spokesperson said they are investigating what happened.
In an exclusive interview, Faust said he was flying to Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday when he noticed a female flight attendant was wearing several pins, including a Palestine flag and a Black Lives Matter badge.
The Parkland, Florida-based telecoms entrepreneur told DailyMail.com that he wasn’t happy seeing the flag, but didn’t want to cause trouble so kept quiet about it – reasoning that he had something equivalent: a visible Jewish tattoo.
But he said that when the crew member put on an apron for serving drinks and moved the Palestine pin on top so it still showed, he took it as a deliberate provocation.
‘I walked up to the front and said to the lead attendant, ‘I just wanna tell you I’m a frequent flier, and it was upsetting that she wore that, and that she only changed that pin to the front of the apron, not the others,’ Faust told DailyMail.com.
‘She said ‘okay, I’ll speak with her.’
‘I said: ‘I don’t want there to be an issue. Maybe speak with her after we leave the plane. Just talk about how it was maybe a little insensitive, it made me feel a little uncomfortable.’
‘I went back to my seat. I said nothing to this flight attendant the entire flight.’
But while disembarking, Faust, a father of two and volunteer firefighter, said the attendant pointed him out to another JetBlue staffer in a yellow vest, who started to grill him.
‘He goes, ‘Sir! I need to speak with you.’ Faust told DailyMail.com. ‘So we go to the top of the ramp. I go, ‘What are you speaking about?’ He said: ‘The disturbance you caused on the airplane.’ I said ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘He said ‘I’m going to need to see your ID. Our pilot called down about the disturbance you caused.’ I said ‘I didn’t cause any disturbance. I’m not giving you my ID.’
‘He said, ‘I’m gonna call Las Vegas Metro PD.’ I said ‘do so.’ So he calls the police and he says ‘I’m standing here with a passenger that caused a disturbance on our flight.’
‘Once he said that I just walked away. I was not going to sit there while he made up lies.’
Faust said the next day the airline canceled his flight home without telling him, and when he called customer service he got a shock.
‘They read me the notes. It said ‘Mr. Faust caused a disturbance on the flight, did not listen to flight crew instructions’ – not true, there was no instruction I was given – ‘didn’t listen to the supervisor at the gate… And Mr. Faust said everyone should go to Gaza so they can be killed.’
‘That was not true at all,’ he said. ‘I had a conversation with the woman sitting next to me, who brought up the LGBTQ queers for Palestine. We had a quiet conversation, not addressing the flight attendant.
‘I said ‘yeah, it’s a bit sad because if they went there, they would be killed.’ I had no communication with the flight attendant, whatsoever.
‘I specifically told the lead flight attendant that I didn’t want her to speak to her while I was on the plane because I didn’t want them to be disrupted. So they have lied. They’ve listened to her story, never asked me, and they have canceled my flight home.’
The passenger who sat next to Faust, Rachelle Almagor, confirmed his story, and shared with DailyMail.com photos she took of the attendant during the flight.
Almagor, 45, is a Jewish Israeli-American also based in Florida.
‘My daughter lost her best friend in Gaza. He was kidnapped and murdered. So it was very uncomfortable for me to have to see that Free Palestine pin,’ she told DailyMail.com.
‘When we were getting off the plane, security was waiting for us, asking for our IDs and boarding passes. We weren’t saying anything wrong. It was insanity.
‘She needs to be fired immediately.
‘From getting off the plane, all the way to the hotel, I was shaking. I immediately called JetBlue and canceled my flight. I was supposed to leave tonight, and I changed it to American Airlines.’
‘I’ve been a Mosaic member for 10 years, a loyal flier,’ Faust said referring to JetBlue’s loyalty program.
‘This is what’s going on now. It’s one thing to happen on college campuses with kids who don’t know what they’re doing. This is now a corporation that, right or wrong, allows an employee to wear that pin, but then allows them to treat a customer that way.
‘Not a good look JetBlue.’
A third passenger, Noel Ruiz, who sat across the aisle from Faust and Almagor, told DailyMail.com that he didn’t see any disturbance on the plane.
‘I didn’t see anything. There was no disturbance at all,’ he said.
After sharing his story on Instagram with his 26,000 followers on Monday, dozens commented on Faust’s post saying they would no longer be flying with the airline.
Faust is an ardent Israel supporter, posting regularly on his Instagram with videos that are critical of pro-Palestine protesters and lauding Israel’s response to Hamas terror attacks.
In one of the more controversial videos he has posted, he suggested protesters who chanted ‘We are Hamas’ at pro-Palestine rallies should be ‘shipped to Guantanamo Bay’ for aligning themselves with a terrorist organization.
A JetBlue spokesperson told DaiyMail.com the New York-based company is investigating what happened.
‘JetBlue is committed to providing a respectful and welcoming environment for all our customers and crewmembers.
‘We are urgently investigating this incident, reaching out to the customer to hear first-hand about their experience and speaking to the crewmembers involved to understand if the actions taken were consistent with our policies and our customer service standards.’
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