Israeli passengers on a Aegean Airlines flight from Greece to Israel forced the cabin crew to remove two Israeli Arabs from the flight before allowing it to take off. The incident occurred at Athens airport on Monday night, when some 70 Jewish Israeli passengers decided that the two Israeli Arab passengers on the flight constituted a security risk. After bringing their concern to the attention of the crew, they prevented the flight from taking off by standing in the aisles.
In an unprecedented move for a commercial company, Aegean Airlines indeed removed the two Israeli Arab men who were holding Israeli documents from the airplane and flew to Tel Aviv with more than an hour delay.
The incident triggered an outrage not only in Greece but mainly in Israel.
Aegean Airlines was forced to apologize and sent a letter to Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Saeb Erekat. Aegean Airlines CEO Dimitris Gerogiannis expressed the company’s “greatest regrets for the event” and rejected “any possibility of discrimination.” Aegean rejected Palestinian claims of racism and said it acted with passenger safety in mind.
“The incident started with 3-4 people, by the end there were 60-70 people standing up, demanding that the pair disembark. After an initial complaint by passengers, the documents of the two men were checked again by Greek security but no issues were found. But by that stage the protest had escalated, with dozens of passengers refusing to take their seats until the men were removed from the plane.
Eventually the two men agreed to disembark and stayed in a hotel at Aegean’s expense and flew TO Tel Aviv the next day.
Israeli media identified the two as an Israeli Arab and a Palestinian, saying the protesting passengers were Jewish.
The airline said only that one of the men held an Israeli passport while the other had a valid Israeli residence permit.
But even after the two men disembarked, the group of passengers insisted that the crew conduct an additional security check, causing the captain to warn them that they would be forcibly removed from the plane without compensation.” via haaretz
An Israeli man who was among the passengers involved in the incident defended the group’s actions on Wednesday, maintaining that the two Arab men were “scary” and that he and the other passengers believed they were terrorists.
Greece on Thursday said it condemned all forms of discrimination after Palestinian leaders complained at the removal of two Arab passengers from an Israel-bound flight.
The Palestinian leadership on Wednesday demanded the Greek government take “strong action”, saying the decision to remove the pair was reminiscent of apartheid.
Greece’s justice ministry stressed Thursday that “the principle of equal treatment must be rigourously respected” for all passengers.
It added it “condemned all discriminatory treatment on grounds of racial or ethnic origin, religious convictions or other” grounds.
PS what a shame!
