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| Magazine Feature |

Airlines Unmasked

Turbulence Ahead: Are the skies less friendly to Observant Jews?


Illustrations by Esti Friedman

The thin piece of colored cloth that accompanies virtually every COVID regulation on the ground has created some atmospheric pressure in the formerly friendly skies as well.

Flight attendant crews, once limited to reminding passengers to fasten seatbelts and pouring out frothy cups of warm Diet Coke, have now been handed their roughest job yet — ensuring that every passenger, every second of the time, has every part of their lower face covered.

Given that this directive has led to an increasing number of complaints by Orthodox Jews who feel they’ve been unfairly targeted for enforcement, should families think twice before they fly? Or should they give more consideration when choosing an airline?

Three times over the past two months, Jewish social media was flooded with viral videos of heimish families being tossed off an aircraft for alleged lack of compliance. And according to attorney Michael Inzelbuch, who represents one of the families, there are at least double that number of incidents that did not result in an official complaint or video evidence.

“I’ve had six people call me over the past few days with complaints that they were discriminated against for mask noncompliance while flying on Spirit Airlines,” Inzelbuch told Mishpacha.

The skirmishes that were made public happened on a major airline (Delta), mid-cap (Frontier), and budget (Spirit). Because all the cases happened during flights from Florida to the Tristate area, Judy Tenenbaum, corporate travel consultant at the Lakewood-based Plane Talk travel agency, says she knows of many families with young children who drove to Florida for Pesach rather than risk a confrontation over mask-wearing.

“It’s mostly the cheaper airlines where these things happen,” says Tenenbaum, who focuses on international travel and whose customers were not affected by the recent stories. “There are laws on the books that they can take advantage of if they want to be mean and nasty. But there’s really no solution.”

Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal said he was in contact with the families from both the Spirit and Frontier flights. The Queens Democrat drafted a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bistate agency that runs the region’s airports, demanding action to prevent more discrimination.

“The reason we did this letter,” Rosenthal says, “is because it’s already more than one or two airlines, so it’s already a trend we’re seeing and a trend we want to stop in its tracks. That’s why we are asking the appropriate government agencies to investigate, to hold these airlines responsible for their actions.”

The letter was also signed by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, a Brooklyn Democrat who chairs the committee that oversees state authorities such as the Port Authority, State Senator Simcha Felder, and Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein.

“Widely circulated video evidence has shown Jewish families being removed from flights for lack of mask usage from a toddler or a child under two years of age, despite being in full compliance of federal guidelines,” stated the letter. “As anti-Semitic incidents and hate crimes continue to rise in our state, these occurrences are deeply troubling. Any action involving alleged discrimination requires an immediate remedy to ensure no further incidents occur.”

The FAA has established general COVID-generated guidelines, while leaving leeway for airlines to adopt their own rules. Spirit Airlines, for example, exempts children under two and any special needs person from wearing a mask.

Rosenthal says he partially blames media caricatures of the Orthodox community throughout COVID as uncaring for human life and heedless of regulations.

“It should not be news,” he says, “that a community singled out, and in many cases unfairly targeted, by certain publications, would lead to this kind of discrimination.”

Excerpted from Mishpacha Magazine. To view full version, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE or LOG IN.

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