France has demanded answers from the Spanish low-cost airline Vueling after a group of more than 50 Jewish children and their adult counselors from a summer camp were hauled off a plane at Valencia Airport in Eastern Spain by paramilitary police.
The controversial incident has resulted in allegations of antisemitism perpetrated by members of the aircrew aboard Vueling flight 8166 on July 23 after one of the flight attendants was reportedly overheard describing Israel as a “terrorist state.”
After being removed from the flight, one of the adult counselors was forcibly arrested after getting into a verbal altercation with one of the police officers. A video of the female being pinned to the ground has since gone viral in both France and Israel.
On Friday, the French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, personally called the chief executive of Vueling to share the concern of his government over the incident and demand answers as to what exactly led to the removal of the children.
Barrot also called the Spanish ambassador to France to demand an investigation into whether the French nationals booted from flight 8166 were discriminated against.
On the same day that Barrot made his intervention, Vueling doubled down on its claim that the children had been highly disruptive and had failed to follow crew member instructions despite repeated warnings.
Vueling dismissed reports from some unrelated passengers on the flight that the children had not caused any problems and that the decision had been removed after just one of the teenagers sang a single word in Hebrew.
“The cabin crew was alerted that the group of teenagers was tampering with passenger safety equipment, posing a high risk to the aircraft, passengers and crew,” the airline said in a second statement addressing the incident on Friday.
“These actions included attempting to release life jackets, tampering with overhead oxygen masks, and removing a high-pressure oxygen cylinder that potentially posed a serious danger to the cabin. Furthermore, the group disrupted the mandatory safety demonstration and repeatedly disobeyed crew instructions.”
A spokesperson for the airline, which is part of the IAG Group, which also owns Iberia and British Airways, said that the children interrupted the pre-flight safety briefing three times and that the unruly behavior continued even after the First Officer went into the cabin to personally warn them.
While Vueling says that an investigation into the incident is ongoing, the airline remains insistent that the children and adult counselors were removed “solely for safety reasons.”
The group was made up of 41 children aged between 10 and 15 years old, along with seven adult companions, from Club Kineret.
In an official statement, the club has rejected Vueling’s version of events and says that it has made an official complaint to the airline.
Last week, the French government announced that it would unilaterally recognize the State of Palestine in September, whether or not there is a ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Spanish government has been highly critical of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, and earlier this month, the country’s highest criminal court opened preliminary proceedings against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes.
It is feared that action such as this in France, Spain, and elsewhere is leading to an uptick in antisemitism.
In 2022, German flag carrier Lufthansa reportedly agreed to pay $2.7 million to settle a lawsuit brought by a group of unrelated passengers who were denied boarding on a connecting flight in Frankfurt because they looked Jewish.
During the first flight from New York’s JFK airport, several people allegedly became disruptive and refused to follow crew instructions.
Rather than identifying the specific culprits, however, Lufthansa barred anyone with Jewish names from boarding a connecting flight to Budapest. In total, 128 people were denied boarding.
Late last year, the U.S. Department of Transportation fined Lufthansa an additional $4 million over the incident.
