A flight attendant on a Ryanair flight from Bologna to Tel Aviv announced the final destination as Palestine multiple times.
Passengers on a Ryanair flight from Bologna to Tel Aviv were shocked after a flight attendant repeatedly described their final destination as Palestine, reports the Jewish Breaking News.
According to Israeli passengers on the flight, a flight attendant said they were bound for Palestine multiple times, in both Italian and English. About half an hour before landing at the Ben Gurion Airport in central Israel, the flight attendant announced over the intercom that the plane was “approaching Palestine.”
Some of the passengers on the flight spoke up about the announcement and reported that they asked the attendant to either correct herself or apologise.
“We didn’t [buy tickets] on the airline to deal with anti-Zionist opinions [from flight staff],” a passenger said. “All we wanted was [an announcement] that Tel Aviv is in Israel.”
However, their requests were refused, and instead, the cabin crew accused the passengers of creating a disturbance that endangered the safety of the flight.
An Italian-speaking passenger was surprised that the flight attendant doubled down on their views during a conversation, insisting that Tel Aviv is located not in the State of Israel but in Palestine.
The flight attendant who made the announcement was not wearing a name tag, making it impossible to identify anyone by name to file a complaint later.
One passenger, who tried to take a picture of the attendant, was told that she would be arrested upon landing if she left her seat to get a clear image of the speaker.
At first, Ryanair, which is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, refused to respond to multiple requests for comment from Channel 14, who first reported the incident. Since then, Ryanair CEO Eddie Wilson issued a letter of apology, stating that the issue was being handled and claiming that the flight attendant who made the announcement was a junior and made an innocent mistake, which was corrected by the crew over the loudspeaker. According to Wilson, the disturbance was caused by a small group of passengers who continued to be aggressive towards the crew even after the apology. Wilson reassured that such an innocent mistake would not happen again and that Israel is a very important partner for Ryanair.