A Frontier Airlines flight from Miami to New York’s La Guardia airport was canceled on Sunday night after a large group of passengers, including several adults, refused to wear masks, the airline said.
On Monday morning, the airline faced accusations of anti-Semitism for the treatment of Hasidic passengers, as well as demands for an investigation by the New York Anti-Defamation League and other groups. Frontier firmly maintained its position that passengers refused to comply with federal rules that required them to wear masks.
Several cell phone videos that have emerged do not show the confrontation that took place between Frontier passengers and crew, only the aftermath. The video from inside the aircraft appeared to show members of the group wearing masks. Some passengers said the episode escalated because only one member of the group, a 15-month-old child, was not using it.
Videos of passengers exiting the plane in the midst of chaos, captured by others on the flight, were posted on Twitter by the Jewish Orthodox Public Relations Council. In a video, a passenger says, “This is an anti-Semitic act.”
Another video showed a couple holding a baby without a mask in a car seat, while children cried and a woman explained that the children in her group, sitting at the back of the plane, had taken off their masks to eat.
In a third video, a passenger says “This is Nazi Germany” as the couple with the child walk down the aisle of the plane towards the exit.
A Frontier Airlines spokeswoman said in a statement that “a large group of passengers has repeatedly refused to fulfill the US government’s federal mask mandate”.
“Several people, including several adults, have been asked repeatedly to wear their masks and have refused to do so,” said Jennifer de la Cruz, the spokeswoman. “Based on the continued refusal to comply with the mandate of the federal mask, the refusal to disembark the aircraft and the assault on the flight crew, the local police were called. The flight ended up being canceled. “
But members of the group said they wore masks.
“We are law-abiding citizens,” said Martin Joseph, who was traveling with 21 members of his family, including children and grandchildren. “We have small children. We understand that the mask has to be worn, and everyone has to wear a mask and that is the law. We did a million percent. “
Joseph said his daughter and husband were sitting in the last row with their 15-month-old son and two other couples with their children. They are all Hasidic Jews, Joseph said, although he added that one of the couples was not related to him.
He said a flight attendant asked her daughter to put a mask on the baby. She argued that her son did not need to wear a mask because of his age. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention requires masks only for airline passengers at least 2 years old.
“So they announced that all three couples at the back of the plane would have to leave the plane before taking off,” said Joseph. “Babies were crying, people were crying, mothers were crying.”
Another passenger on the plane, Temima Stark, said she was sitting with her husband and son when the commotion started. She said she saw airline employees approach passengers in the back. Everyone seemed to wear masks, she said, except for the baby, who was eating.
As passengers got off the plane, Stark, who was not traveling with the group, said he saw airline employees shaking hands. Of several other passengers who were interviewed on video repeated the statement. Frontier Airlines did not directly comment on the claim.
“The whole plane was going crazy,” she said.
Within minutes of leaving, Stark said, the remaining passengers were expelled from the plane.
On Monday, New York Anti-Defamation League called for a “complete and transparent investigation” on Twitter, citing “apparently #antisemite comments made by the team or others”.
Asked about allegations of anti-Semitism, Ms. De la Cruz, Frontier’s spokeswoman, said the airline analyzes “all situations in which a passenger needs to be taken off a flight”.
“Like many other airlines,” she said, “Frontier has a zero-tolerance policy with regard to masks on our flights. This is clear at the time of purchase, before and during the check-in process, at the gate and on board the aircraft. “
The use of masks and other public health measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus became a flashpoint in the New York area during the summer, when Covid-19 began to spread rapidly across areas of Brooklyn and Queens. City health officials said at the time that they were especially concerned about a clear increase in transmission between some of the city’s Hasidic communities. Similar tensions have arisen in Israel.
Asked about the confrontation aboard the Frontier flight, Yossi Gestetner, founder of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council, said that “regardless of what may have led to the start of all this confusion, what people are accusing airline employees of. to do is certainly unacceptable and needs to be addressed. ”
“The airline wants the public to believe that 12 people, some unrelated except for belonging to the same ethnic group, entered the airport and boarded the plane with masks and left with masks as seen in videos, but collectively decided to remove all masks while sitting, ”he said. “It defies logic.”