by Mia Taylor
Last updated: 2:05 PM ET, Tue October 15, 2024
Lufthansa Airlines, the flagship carrier for Germany, is being fined $4 million in response to allegations that it discriminated against a group of Jewish passengers.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced the penalty today, which is the largest ever issued by the government agency for civil rights violations. In a statement regarding the matter, DOT said Lufthansa discriminated against a group of Jewish passengers who were traveling from New York City through Frankfurt to Budapest on May 2022.
“Based on the alleged misconduct of some passengers, Lufthansa prohibited 128 Jewish passengers – most of whom wore distinctive garb typically worn by Orthodox Jewish men – from boarding their connecting flight in Germany,” said the DOT statement.
Despite many of the passengers not knowing each other nor traveling together, passengers interviewed by DOT investigators stated that Lufthansa Airlines treated them all as if they were a single group and denied them boarding for the alleged misbehavior of a few, the statement continued.
“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,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, said in a statement.
The Department said it received in excess of 40 discrimination complaints from Jewish passengers who were ticketed to fly from John F. Kennedy airport in NYC (JFK), with a stop in Frankfurt, Germany (FRA), and an ultimate destination of Budapest, Hungary (BUD) in May 2022.
DOT’s subsequent investigation into the complaints found that Lufthansa prohibited 128 Jewish passengers from completing their planned journey to Budapest based in response to the alleged misbehavior of some passengers on the first flight.
“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,” DOT explained in its statement today.
The alert to security resulted in a hold being placed on more than100 passengers' tickets whose final destination was Budapest. This action, in turn, prevented the impacted passengers from boarding their next scheduled flight in Frankfurt, per DOT.
All of the passengers with a hold placed on their ticket by Lufthansa Airlines were Jewish, DOT added.
“Non-compliant individuals were not named, and Lufthansa 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,” added DOT.
In its own statement, issued today, Lufthansa said it had fully cooperated with the DOT as it conducted its investigation and that it had partnered with the American Jewish Committee in the wake of the incident, according to NBC.
“Through our ongoing collaboration, we have curated a first-of-its kind training program in the airline industry for our managers and employees to address antisemitism and discrimination,” the airline said. “Lufthansa is dedicated to being an ambassador of goodwill, tolerance, diversity, and acceptance.”
Additionally, at the time the incident occurred in 2022, the airline issued an apology, per NBC, pointing out that it had “zero tolerance for racism, antisemitism and discrimination of any type.”
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