Frontier Airlines under fire after Hasidic family kicked off flight

By Jackson Richman

Frontier Airlines has come under fire after a Hasidic family was kicked off a flight that ended up being canceled on Sunday after apparently not having their 18-month-old child wearing a mask.

The family claimed it was booted from the flight, which was scheduled to depart Miami at 7 p.m., and arrive in New York’s LaGuardia Airport, because it had a maskless baby.

In footage posted on Twitter by Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council that has gone viral, the Hasidic family exiting the plane were seen wearing facemasks, in accordance with coronavirus restrictions. As that was happening, some passengers protested, apparently toward the crew in the front of plane, who couldn’t been seen with one saying, “What are you accomplishing” and another saying “you’re going to pay the consequences.”

“I’m having it all on tape,” the second passenger added. “This is going to go all over the news.”

A third passenger interjected, “This is Nazi Germany!” The second passenger then said, “This is going to go all over the news. You’re all going to suffer the consequences of this.”

Additionally, according to two people on the plane, following the group exiting the plane, the stewardesses who removed the family from the flight high-fived each other and said, “Job well done to those Jews.”

A statement like that is anti-Semitic since the religion of those kicked off was invoked. Mentioning the religion of those someone targets in a discriminatory manner is bigoted – in the case of Jews, it’s called anti-Semitism.

Another passenger, named David, said he was kicked off because he was video recording the incident. He said that he plans to sue Frontier for discrimination.

There is video of Frontier stewardesses on the scheduled flight not wearing masks – a hypocritical act given that a family was kicked off over their infant not wearing a mask.

In a statement on Sunday evening, Frontier said that there was “a large group” that refused to wear masks.

“Members of a large group, including adults, refused to wear masks as flight 2878 was preparing for departure from MIA-LGA,” said the airline. “Repeated requests to comply with federal law necessitated their removal from the flight. The issue did not stem from a child under 2.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandates that passengers over the age of two must wear masks on commercial flights unless they have a qualifying disability.