Boropark24 reported earlier today that 200 passengers were prevented from boarding their connecting flight to Kerestir from Frankfurt at the last minute.
As the day wore on, accounts began to filter out from the group, which gave a clearer picture of the events, and point to what seems like an ugly act of anti-Semitism on the part of the airline.
The passengers were about to board the Budapest-bound plane when every single one of the 200 Chassidic travelers was told that they were banned from the flight.
“We were told we cannot fly with them to our destination in Budapest, no specifics mentioned,” shared one of the stranded passengers with obvious indignation. They banned an entire group of people from the flight solely because we looked and dressed the same as the few who did not comply with the mask mandate. “This was pure anti-Semitism,” he said.
The group was able to make it to Kerestir in the nick of time, through a Vienna-bound plane and a long coach bus ride from the Austrian capitol.
Lufthansa airlines tweeted about the incident: “We confirm that a larger group of passengers could not be carried today by our flight to Budapest because the travelers refused to wear a medical mask.”
But the passengers insist that it was a gross generalization, and the facts were far from the way Lufthansa wishes to portray it: “Instead of singling out those who were not obliging to the requirement the airline chose to generalize and punish a whole group of innocent people. We felt humiliated and threatened in Frankfort by Lufthansa airline,” the passenger said.
The group is contemplating a potential lawsuit against the airline, as they depart Kerestir, in which they spent far less time than originally planned.