An Israeli court ordered Ukraine International Airlines (UIA) to compensate a Jewish couple for anti-Semitic remarks made by its staff in Vienna last year, Globes reported.

In April 2019, the Israeli couple arrived at the airport in Vienna for their UIA flight to Tel Aviv with a stopover in Kiev. When the couple’s suitcases were weighed, they were told that one of their pieces of hand luggage exceeded the weight limit by 100 grams, which meant they would have to pay a fee of 60 euros ($73). As is commonly done in such scenarios, the couple removed items from the overweight piece of luggage to another bag in order to avoid paying the fee.

Meanwhile, members of the airline staff began making anti-Semitic statements (in English) such as “Why do Jews always have a problem paying money?” and other anti-Semitic remarks. Furthermore, the staff members joked about the matter to each other in German in front of the other passengers.

The couple endured the humiliating scene only to be told afterward that they wouldn’t be allowed on the plane despite the fact that their checked luggage was already on the plane’s hold. The couple was forced to buy new tickets for a new flight the next day and didn’t receive their checked luggage until a day after they arrived in Israel.

Ukraine Airlines claimed that the couple had shouted and insulted the staff and that’s why their luggage wasn’t taken off the plane. However, the Rishon L’Tzion court accepted the couple’s account of being publicly humiliated “in a way that suggests that they were humiliated because of their religion and country of origin.”

The airline was ordered to pay NIS 2,000 to each claimant and another NIS 1,000 for the delay in receiving their luggage.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)