JetBlue called the cops and banned a passenger, cancelling his return flight, after speaking to a flight attendant about another member of the cabin crew who was wearing a Palestine flag pin.
After the flight attendant put on an apron for service and placed only her Palestine flag pin over the apron for service so that her other pins were obscured, but she was making sure this one continued to be visible. The Jewish passenger who was flying to Las Vegas on Sunday noticed the woman allowed the apron to cover up pins including Black Lives Matter.
JetBlue airlines hit with ‘anti-Semitism’ accusations after calling the police on Jewish passenger and accusing him of causing a ‘disturbance’ after he complained about flight attendant’s Palestine lapel pin https://t.co/WChIvCPEqn pic.twitter.com/N63DRxBmKh
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) April 30, 2024
He spoke to the lead crewmember and expressed that “it was upsetting that she wore that, and that she only changed that pin to the front of the apron, not the others.” He says he was told in response, “okay, I’ll speak with her.”
Nothing more was said during the flight, but a JetBlue employee boarded the aircraft and a flight attendant pointed him out.
‘He goes, ‘Sir! I need to speak with you.’ …’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.’
The passenger left, not waiting for police. Then the TrueBlue member who has held status for 10 years with the carrier discovered that JetBlue cancelled his return flight. An agent over the phone read him notes,
‘That was not true at all,’ he said. ‘I had a conversation with the woman sitting next to me, who brought up the LGBTQ group 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.
Reportedly the passenger who sat next to him “confirmed his story.”
It is possible to wear a Palestinian flag and believe you’re advocating for two states. That isn’t usually what it means. One wears the pin to represent “from the river to the sea” Jews will be cleansed, and the land will be Palestinians. At a minimum the frequency with which this message is attached to the symbol means it’s likely to be understood this way.
According to the airline,
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.
To be clear, crewmembers wearing Palestine flag pins is hardly limited to JetBlue. What’s unique in the case of JetBlue is that when a passenger spoke up about their own reaction, the passenger was met by police and their return flight cancelled. The problem here isn’t speech, it’s asymmetric speech (free speech for me, but not for thee, much as on college campuses where speech is currently loudest from those with a privileged place in the oppression hierarchy).
Last time we checked @Delta, your airlines is American based with no flights to “Palestine”.
Why is your employee at Ronald Reagan Airport wearing a Palestinian flag? pic.twitter.com/qyguQ7KLWn
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) May 1, 2024
There’s this weird idea that’s somehow become popular about ‘bringing your whole self to work.’ That’s dumb. I certainly don’t bring my whole self to the office, it’s work not friends and family, and it’s a place to be professional. We’re there to do a job not to kibbitz.
It’s far more problematic at an airline. At an office there’s both self-selection and employer selection that tends to create common ground among employees in a given workspace. Air travel brings people together from all walks of life, having good days and bad days, and traps them inside of a metal tube for hours at a time. That can already be combustible.
Even more challenging is when disagreements are between passengers and crew, because of the power disparity between them under the law.
- The FAA reauthorization bill increases the maximum penalty for passengers violation aviation regulations from $25,000 to $75,000 and make the same penalties that apply to interfering with security screening personnel extend to airport and airline personnel “performing ticketing, check-in, baggage claim, or boarding functions.”
- 49 USC § 44902 provides broad latitude, within certain bounds laid out by the FAA, for the captain of an aircraft to refuse transportation to a passenger if they feel that passenger might be “inimical to safety.” While passengers don’t have to obey crewmember instructions on any and all subjects unrelated to safety, failure to follow any instruction or simply making a crewmember ‘feel unsafe’ is enough for a captain to toss a passenger regardless of whom is at fault.
Bringing crewmember politics onto the aircraft, and forcing passengers to remain silent in response under threat of both airline and legal sanction, is certainly one choice for an airline to make.
Of course passengers get kicked off for their attire – whether for ‘not enough’ attire or because the messages they’re wearing are deemed offensive, whether it’s F-12 in the aftermath of George Floyd or F-cancer after completing treatment.
