Frontier Airlines Jewish family mask controversy. Martin Joseph, Brooklyn, NY man challenges airlines contention that a group of Hasidic Jews were being rowdy and refusing to follow face mask policy.
An airliner has been accused of anti semitism after staff removed passengers from a flight it claimed members of a Hassidic Jewish family refused to wear face masks amid the ongoing pandemic.
The incident comes as video captured Frontier Airlines staff removing family members moments before the plane was about to depart Miami and take off for New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night.
Video captured uproar as family members claim airline staff overreacting to a 15-month-old infant whose face was not covered – even though federal guidelines do not require those under 2 years of age to wear masks.
Other witnesses also alleged that Frontier staffers ‘cheered’ and ‘high-fived each other’ while exclaiming ‘We did it!’ after demanding the Jewish passengers off the plane.
The airline said it has not ‘seen any information to support these claims.’
Disturbing incident the last hour on a @FlyFrontier flight as staff told a Hasidic couple to get off because their 18 month old had no mask. Applause is heard as the couple started leaving. Travels say on camera that the applause came from staff who also cheered that “we did it.” pic.twitter.com/rA2JQmI1tU
— OJPAC (@OJPAC) March 1, 2021
Frontier Airlines denies ejection was result of young child not wearing mask
‘Multiple people, including several adults, were asked repeatedly to wear their masks and refused to do so,’ the airline said in a statement Sunday night according to the nypost.
‘Based on the continued refusal to comply with the federal mask mandate, refusal to disembark the aircraft and aggression towards the flight crew, local law enforcement was engaged.’
The airline stressed the issue did not involve a child under the age of two not wearing a mask.
Martin Joseph, 51, of Brooklyn, New York, said that it was his family that he claimed was ‘unfairly removed’ from the plane by Frontier staff.
Joseph said that he and his family of 21 others, including 13 adults and 9 children whose ages range from 15 months old to five years old, boarded the flight without any issues.
‘Everybody wore the masks and followed the mandate,’ the passenger told the dailymail.
Just before takeoff, Joseph said that one of the flight attendants approached his daughter because her 15-month-old son was not wearing a mask.
Members of a large group, including adults, refused to wear masks as flight 2878 was preparing for departure from MIA-LGA. Repeated requests to comply with federal law necessitated their removal from the flight. The issue did not stem from a child under 2.
— Frontier Airlines (@FlyFrontier) March 1, 2021
‘We’re law-abiding citizens,’
When the family tried to explain to the attendant that the infant was not required to wear the mask, the stewardess repeated her demand to know why the baby was not masked, according to Joseph.
Moments later, a staffer came on board with a pen and pad in hand, Joseph said. Then someone on the loud speaker announced that all passengers in the last two rows were Martin’s family was sitting were required to deplane.
Joseph, who was seated a number of rows ahead of the rest of his family, said he tried to speak with the airline staff in an attempt to smooth things over, only for the staff not to be receptive claims the passenger.
The flight was cancelled as disconcert flowed throughout the whole plane.
After all the passengers were forced off the plane, Joseph said that Frontier did not apologize or offer any hotel accommodations. Instead, he rented a room at the Holiday Inn and flew back to New York on Jet Blue early Monday morning.
‘We’re law-abiding citizens,’ Martin told The New York Times. ‘We have small children. We understand that the mask has to be worn, and everybody has to wear a mask, and that’s the law. We comply one million percent.’
If Frontier Airlines did that to a black family, AOC and the crew would be all over it today
The MSM would be going bonkers #BoycottFrontier would be trending all week
But since the family was Hasidic, eh? Who cares?
— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) March 1, 2021
‘I want to make sure other people don’t go through what happened to us,’ he added.
‘We paid for tickets and we were just harassed. It was an anti-Semitic episode. We want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
‘This reminds me of 80 years ago when we were singled out in Nazi Germany,’ he added.
Several witnesses refuted the airline’s claims and corroborated Joseph’s account.
They said that the family was indeed wearing masks and that flight attendants and other staffers were ‘high-fiving each other’ upon ordering the Jewish passengers removed from the aircraft.
When asked about claims that airline staff made anti-Semitic comments, de la Cruz, the Frontier spokeswoman, told DailyMail.com: ‘I have not seen any information that would support these claims.’
The Anti-Defamation League has since demanded that Frontier Airlines launch a ‘full and transparent investigation’ into the incident.
The episode follows episodes in Brooklyn where Jewish patrons attending weddings, funerals and or religious services have openly resisted being forced to having to wear a mask
