In May 2022, DansDeals investigated an incident where 128 visibly Jewish passengers were denied boarding for their connecting flight from Frankfurt to Budapest. You can read our full coverage of the incident in the links at the bottom of this post.
The German airline decided to collectively punish all of the visible Jews on the flight due to some failing to properly wear a face mask, as was required at the time. A Lufthansa supervisor even admitted on video that all of the Jews on the flight were punished due to the actions of a few.
That investigation led to mainstream media coverage and eventually, an apology from the airline and a $21,000 settlement ($17,400 after legal fees) for each affected passengers.
I noted at the time that several passengers complained to the US DOT about their treatment. The DOT has now wrapped up its own investigation into the incident and has published the findings and consent order here.
The DOT’s OACP (Office of Aviation Consumer Protection) writes that,
“OACP finds that, under the totality of the circumstances, Lufthansa’s treatment of the 128 Jewish passengers as a collective group, based on the alleged misconduct of a smaller number of those individuals, constitutes discrimination based on religion in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 40127.”
The DOT found that Lufthansa failed to make any meaningful effort to flag misbehaving passengers, which they say could have been done by name or seat number. Lufthansa said that passengers could have taken empty seats, but the DOT said that the airline could have just tracked the occupied seats that were empty in order to identify the offenders. That may not have been perfect, but would have been better than just banning all visible Jews from their connecting flight, which the DOT found to be discriminatory.
That corroborates the findings of the DansDeals investigation into the incident. The DOT report has a lot more of the inside baseball that went into Lufthansa’s process of banning the passengers from their connecting flight.
The DOT concludes the consent order by saying Lufthansa prohibited 128 visibly Jewish passengers based on the misbehavior of some of those passengers on the first segment of their journey. That constituted discrimination on the basis of religion and unfair business practices.
Naturally, Lufthansa disagreed with the DOT, but has agreed to settle the case for a $4 million fine to avoid having the case litigated in court. The DOT will count half of that fine as paid, due to what the airline paid passengers in excess of what they were required to do legally. That matches up with our previously reported roughly $2.7 million settlement with passengers. Arrangements like that are typical with DOT consent orders.
The airline is now ordered to pay $2 million to the US treasury within 30 days through pay.gov for its actions in denying all visibly Jewish passengers boarding onto their connecting flight.
I just wonder which credit card they are planning to use? Will they earn miles or cash back? 😉
Kudos to the DOT for their thorough investigation and for keeping airlines honest!
What do you think of the DOT report and settlement? Are you comfortable flying on Lufthansa today?
HT: chff
- Previous coverage:
- Part 1, originally published on 5/8/22: A DansDeals Special Investigation: OUTRAGEOUS: German Airline Bans Jews From Flying; Lufthansa Supervisor: It’s “Jewish People Who Were The Mess, Who Made The Problems, Everyone Has To Pay For A Couple!”
- Part 2, originally published on 5/10/22: Lufthansa’s Apology Takes Things From Bad To Worse With 9 Things That Remain Unaddressed; The Media Needs To Get This Story Right
- Part 3, originally published on 5/11/22: Lufthansa CEO Apologizes To Rabbi Of Berlin For Anti-Semitism On His Airline, Suspends Employees Involved
- Part 4, originally published on 5/18/22: What Has Happened In The 2 Weeks Since Lufthansa’s Shocking Anti-Semitic Fiasco In Frankfurt
- Part 5, originally published on 5/24/22: Here Is The Apology Letter That Lufthansa’s CEO Is Sending Passengers That Were Denied Boarding To Budapest; Is The 4th Time The Charm?
- Part 6, background covered in Ami Magazine’s 5/25/22 issue.
- Part 7, originally published on 6/12/22: Here Is Lufthansa’s Response To The US DOT Complaints Filed Against Them
- Part 8, originally published on 7/29/22: Lufthansa Denies Antisemitism Played A Role In Their Fiasco In Frankfurt
- Part 9, originally published on 11/29/22: The Conclusion: Passengers From Lufthansa Flight 401 Are Now Receiving $17,400 Settlement Checks, What Are The Lessons From The #Flight401 Fiasco In Frankfurt?
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56 Comments On "BREAKING! DOT Report: “Lufthansa Discriminated Against Passengers On The Basis Of Religion,” Orders $4 Million Fine For Collectively Banning Jews From Flying!"
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Is $2/4 million enough to deter such behavior in the future?
It’s better than nothing.
I’m sure that the reputational problems are more meaningful than the cash and hopefully led to meaningful change.
Certainly not. However, the embarrassment of the fine and being “convicted” by the DOT of anti-Semitic behavior (especially as a German airline) probably will be quite effective at deterring such behavior.
We should be thankful to the BIDEN-HARRIS administration. Credit where credit is due is appropriate.
What credit should they get? What exactly did they do?
Yes I am sure Biden and Kamala personally took time out of their schedule to be involved in this
Yeah.
Wasn’t it a few months ago when Biden hurried away from the press to make a phone call? That was because he contacted the DOT to ensure they conduct this investigation.
And Kamala? You’ve surely noticed she doesn’t have time to take questions from anyone. What do you think she’s doing during that time? She’s busy coordinating with the DOT and Lufthansa. Just open your eyes wide.
@steve
Wow! blind loyalty much? Busy? She doesn’t even have time to meet up with Netanyahu. Remember, Cackles Mckneepads said this on air “They are showing exactly what the human emotion should be, as a response to Gaza” as a response to students in university expressing their hatred towards jews”
You make me laugh!
Do you also thank Biden/Harris for all the antisemitism that’s happening across the United States during their reign of power?
yes the secretary of transportation was on the new about this
What about getting payments for cancelling my Israel based flights within 7 days of departure and not providing me with an alternative to get home… aren’t they liable under Israeli Aviation Services Law? They stopped flying even as other airlines, including star alliance partners Aegean and Lot kept flying. Has anyone successfully gotten money?
And now back to best redemption on Lufthansa and qatar. The hypocrisy here is something else!
Why is that hypocrisy? I personally will still fly Lufthansa and appreciate the posts about redeeming miles to fly on their flights.
Do the passengers who were discriminated get any additional funds from the settlement?
No.
Israel should get more army anti … today Biden discriminated against jews and their right to protect themselves, he should be penalized too. Big time.
GOOD
What’s the purpose of paying US Treasury? (I don’t get politics lol)
It helps pay for their investigation and it deters them and other airlines from repeating an incident like this.
It’s not politics. It’s a reputational hit. The fine raises public awareness and forces the airline to plead “no contest.” It’s a good outcome from a repugnant action by the airline.
It funds governmental operations. There was a time during the Obama administration were they were being accused of corporate shakedowns as they went hard after many many companies and gained nice settlements from each investigation. A chunk of the government is funded by these settlements.
Would be nice if the ordered fine went to the passengers not just to the gov coffers
Fortunately, the fine is above and beyond the amounts needed to reimburse the passengers. They already accepted the settlements.
“Lufthansa, however, denies any suggestion that any of its employees engaged in any form
of discrimination. Moreover, Lufthansa strongly disputes that the Department has legal authority to enforce 49 U.S.C. § 41712, 49 U.S.C. § 40127 and 49 U.S.C. § 41310 on an extraterritorial basis with respect to events that occurred in FRA within the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany”
HA. THINK AGAIN.
Smells like a confession.
Including the compensation that was already made to the affected passengers was smart. It removes the incentive for companies in similar situations from feeling compelled to low-ball compensation. They’ll now figure that since they’ll likely get fined anyway, might as well shift a significant amount to those that actually were harmed. The DOT wasn’t directly harmed and they don’t need the relative pocket change of 4 million dollars.
$4 Million is nothing for them. They make that amount every minute..
Your math is off. There’s 525,600 minutes in a year. Multiply that by 4,000,000 and it’s over 2 trillion dollars. They don’t make that kind of money.
Yeah! And in a leap year its even more.
Just curious, If the flight was from Frankfurt to Budapest, how does the US DOT have jurisdiction and authority in this case, and not a European DOT?
The flights originated in NY to Bud with a stopover in FRA.
They don’t, however, they can revoke your landing privileges at all airports on US Soil until they pay the fine
Isn’t that extortion?
Possibly because it was a connecting flight that had originated in America? Lufthansa claims that America does not have jurisdiction.
The tickets were booked from New York to Budapest, with a stop in Frankfurt. The airline is responsible for getting the passengers from the US to their final destination without violating US laws until US-originated passengers are at their foreign destination. Until they’re there, they are subject to DOT regulations.
I don’t personally think the company executives are anti-Semitic; they tried to reach out to the community and make amends. However, in the past, they allowed a culture to foster where any employee could express their vile antisemitic beliefs and act as a Gestapo.
I am comfortable with the DOT fine, as long as Lufthansa asks the employees in charge to reimburse them (and fires them, if they haven’t already). They should send a memo to all employees stating that if you make an antisemitic decision that financially harms or damages the reputation of our brand, you will be personally held liable to pay for all damages.
עשו שונא את יעקב – אין חדש תחת השמש
Who said they come from Eisav?
Gemara in Megillah – Yaakov Avinu davened that Hashem not allow “Germanya shel edom” – specifically them – to go out and destroy the world.
nuff said
So the DOT US treasury gets 2 Million for a Crime against these passengers, got to love the system
The passengers already got compensated. I’m guessing that individual passengers who wanted more would be allowed to sue rather than accept the settlement.
So if the passengers get nothing more out of this in terms of payment, then all we got out of this DOT investigation is corroboration of Dan’s research. That’s some well-spent taxpayer dollars here. Otherwise, pretty meh!
A conservative Jewish outlook on this. The punishment of ALL physically looking Jewish individuals was certainly wrong and can’t be overlooked. But the problem that I have , and I’m a proud, science believing Jew, is that at this time , with a raging pandemic, killing millions of people, I was embarrassed, dismayed, and angry, that the Hasidic people in general, went maskless, gathered indiscriminately, and brought on a lot of unnecessary finger pointing, for that stupid and irresponsible behavior. If we have learned anything, one doesn’t need to give warranted reason to pick on Jews in general. I was ashamed of them.
Shame on you for doing the exact same thing as Lufthansa, by accusing “the Hasidic people in general” of certain behaviors, whether you agree with them or not.
שנאת עם הארץ לתלמיד חכם the worst type of antisemitism we suffered from this throughout the Generations and now something that can never be forgiven!
I know, right? They shouldn’t have banned all the Jews, just the Hasidic ones.
What exactly does it mean to be a science believing Jew? Science and also God believing Jew? Or just science as it is now known but could be later proven wrong, like it happened before? Do care to explain your view? Science before Torah? Science in conjunction with Torah? Or Torah that doesn’t contradict what you understand as science? Or maybe just science above everything else?
You probably know, right, that some countries actually took that approach. E. g. Sweden, at the very beginning, they didn’t do much regarding distancing, etc? Were you ashamed of the Swedes?
Yes the hassidic jews and every politician in charge of the lockdown. We won’t discuss the NY guy because this is a family blog after all.
Proud to believe in science, as in “The Science” gods, which later officially admitted that lots of that sacred science was made up, a lie or “somehow appeared”? Science can analyze past happenings and the like. But science knows inherently zero about anything. Believe in G-d, not in anything else.
Dansdeals was mentioned in the Washington Post article.
So sad. Deeply hurt by this outrage
From a legal standpoint, why would this fall under US jurisdiction rather than German? It happened in Germany. And the plane in question took off from Germany.
Because the DOT considers all itineraries to or from the US to be under their jurisdiction.
Lufthansa disagreed, but didn’t want to fight this battle in court. The sooner it’s buried, the better for them.
Someone should tell Lufthansa that if the U.S. Department of Justice — and American laws — permit the prosecution of people who travel overseas to commit sexual crimes, or those who bribe government officials overseas, then they can fine your dumb little airline all day, every day.
Only the bad behaving Jews should have been rejected from the flight. Not all Jews. Where the masked Jews also fighting for the Jews who did not want to wear the masks. In that case its ok to reject all of them i guess.