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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Can you guess what Lufthansa is talking about here?

This is possibly the most weaselly statement since the coppers interviewed the Chief Weasel after the retaking of Toad Hall.

Statement of May 10, 2022 on the denied boarding of passengers on flight LH 1334

On May 4, a large number of booked passengers were denied boarding on their onward flight with LH 1334 from Frankfurt to Budapest. Lufthansa regrets the circumstances surrounding the decision to exclude the affected passengers from the flight, for which Lufthansa sincerely apologizes.

While Lufthansa is still reviewing the facts and circumstances of that day, we regret that the large group was denied boarding rather than limiting it to the non-compliant guests.

We apologize to all the passengers unable to travel on this flight, not only for the inconvenience, but also for the offense caused and personal impact.
Lufthansa and its employees stand behind the goal of connecting people and cultures worldwide. Diversity and equal opportunity are core values for our company and our corporate culture. What transpired is not consistent with Lufthansa’s policies or values.

My challenge to readers is to guess without sight of the internet what the “large group” had in common that caused them to be denied boarding – they were not flying together – and exactly what the “non compliant guests” were non-compliant about. Winners will be awarded the sought-after title of Wieselbeobachtersmeister, or something with most of the same syllables anyway.

Actually I do not find this sort of thing funny. Weasels are cute. Lufthansa’s behaviour was not cute, it was shameful, and they deserve to pay the heavy price they will pay.

But…

I also believe that the payment should come from the airline being boycotted by all decent people and/or from them being sued until they have no more Sitzfleisch left for their egregious breach of contract, not from the German or American governments. The proliferation of laws against every tiny, even unintentional, manifestation of this sort of thing has atrophied people’s own sense of its gross wrongness. They can’t see it in themselves. The Lufthansa representative on the scene was apologetic, but firm. She probably congratulated herself on a difficult job well done.

Edit: Originally I included no links in this post in order to make the guessing game more fun. But on second thoughts I ought to credit Ed Driscoll at Instapundit, where I first read about this. No peeking.

19 comments to Can you guess what Lufthansa is talking about here?

  • SankofaRoots

    Not wearing a mask, is my guess.
    I always tell people that if they’re so convinced of the efficacy of masks then they should wear an additional one as a prophylactic against those of us who don’t agree with mask-wearing. That way they get their two-mask barrier and the rest of us get to be free (and right).

  • Utopiste

    Alles in ordnung.

  • The Jannie

    “What transpired is not consistent with Lufthansa’s policies or values. We have zero tolerance for ….. discrimination of any type.”

    Particularly when we get caught . . .

  • Just because there is war in Europe once more doesn’t mean Der Luftwaffe Lufthansa can start being shitty to the Jews once more. Sounds like a matter for an urgent out-of-court settlement.

    Idiots. Lufthansa deserves everything they get (and probably more besides) for this sort of behaviour.

  • Snorri Godhi

    On a tangent: the guy doing the questioning in the video at Instapundit sounds pretty dumb.

    Had i been in the shoes of the Lufthansa officer replying (pretty dense herself), i’d have confronted him: do you want me to answer your questions, or do you just want to hear your own voice?

  • Subotai Bahadur

    From what I understand, and I admit that I may well not have all the facts, that it was a group of Orthodox Jews. They are, of course, easy to pick out visually based on their chosen form of dress. From what I heard, some of them refused to wear masks. Now as insane as the mask mania is, it was part of the deal to fly on Lufthansa.

    However, to collectively bar the entire group of Orthodox Jews because some of them refused is a form of religiously based discrimination. This supposedly happened in Frankfort, so based on both location and the airline’s registration, German law should apply. I believe that in both German law and their Constitution there were provisions barring such written in the aftermath of the revelations of the Holocaust and the Nuremburg Trials. Somewhere in Germany there should be an “airliner chasing” attorney who for a retainer or contingency fee who could make both Lufthansa and the specific persons responsible significantly poorer.

    Subotai Bahadur

  • bobby b

    Orthodox Jews are not known for marching, protesting, destroying, screaming, attacking . . . and so they are a relatively safe group to mistreat like this. A quick and illusory “apology”, and it will all go away.

    There are several safe, mild discrete groupings of people. We who are in such groups need to learn from the BLM model. Make the corporate execs shudder when they even consider that their employees might do such things to members of our groups.

    (I remember way back when my first impulse would have been that we were better than that. No more.)

  • Alexander Tertius Harvey

    I hope that Subotai Bahadur’s spelling of Frankfort is deliberate. Say it now for Lyons. Marseilles, even Leghorn.

    My experience of the airport there is dire, not simply the ‘loading’ of a large, long-distance flight (to Saigon) but, on return, the short hop to Birmingham. Also the Lufthansa desk in Birmingham could book my luggage through, but not me, and the transfer ultimately involved my queuing to enter Germany, to queue to check in, then queue to leave Germany. I need no further reason for avoiding Lufthansa.

    Air France bounced em from an over-booked flight in 2007. I have not flown with them since.

  • Well, I checked the link and both my guesses were correct. Not a difficult guessing game after all.

  • Well done, Natalie! You got there first. My would-have-been post now follows in the form of a comment.

    POETIC INJUSTICE

    The Erdogan Poetry competition produced many funny entries. For my money, this blog’s best was

    A vain president lives on the Bosphorus;
    Any satire makes him feel quite phosphorous.
    Said Frau Merkel, “Fine, sue!
    As regards the EU
    Ending free speech will not be a loss for us.

    (full disclosure: I helped with the scansion). And it’s even printable (unlike many of our efforts – though IIRC, obscenity, and mentioning the goat, were actually requirements to win the prize).

    My own effort went way off topic, onto the topic of Chancellor Merkel importing immigrants who would do the jobs Germans would no longer do – kill Jews, for example. I am vain enough of my poem that I have several times seized opportunities to link to it from later comments, although an excuse to do so was sure to be commenting on a sad event in itself.

    An incident that does not involve killing Jews or even physically injuring them is, at first glance, a poor excuse for yet again linking to my poem. However Natalie wrote below its verses that

    two lines made the poem for me

    and those lines were about the anti-semitic double-standards of the German state, protecting the perpetrators while “hypocritically deploring” their acts. Is this act of a German flagship institution a big step down from that already-low level – or merely a further revelation of what that level was and is?

  • John

    Swap the word Muslim for Jew and then imagine the worldwide reaction if nearly 100 Muslims were profiled and punished en masse for the actions of a few.

  • And now my actual comment on Natalie’s post. 🙂

    Three years ago (less some two weeks), the German government’s ‘anti-semitism’ commissioner warned German Jews not to wear kippas in public. The justification back then was that this would protect them from the increasing frequency of attacks by criminals – though the commissioner preferred to be not so much discrete as highly misleading about the group to which these new criminals belonged.

    Today, that advice – to avoid looking Jewish in German public spaces – is clearly even more appropriate. No longer need you just worry about looking Jewish to criminals when the Germans in charge are not looking. Avoid looking Jewish when the Germans in charge are looking!

  • Snorri Godhi

    The good news is that now Germany is being held to account … by the President of the EU Parliament, who has cleverly turned climate activists against the German government!

    Given that Putin seems to be financing climate activism in the West, all what i can say is: turnaround is fair play.

  • Interestingly, today is the day that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control have hinted that face masks just might possibly not be needed on aircraft. Responding to ECDC Director Andrea Ammon’s statement that:

    “While mandatory mask-wearing in all situations is no longer recommended, it is important to be mindful that together with physical distancing and good hand hygiene it is one of the best methods of reducing transmission.”

    EASA Executive Director Patrick Ky said:

    “It is a relief to all of us that we are finally reaching a stage in the pandemic where we can start to relax the health safety measures. For many passengers, and also aircrew members, there is a strong desire for masks to no longer be a mandatory part of air travel. We are now at the start of that process. Passengers should continue to comply with the requirements of their airline and, where preventive measures are optional, make responsible decisions and respect the choice of other passengers. In particular, a passenger who is coughing and sneezing should strongly consider wearing a face mask, for the reassurance of those seated nearby.”

    The mills of the European Union grind exceedingly slowly when restoration of freedom is concerned whereas they grind exceeding small when (as is more often the case) removing it. Just possibly, someday in the not to distant future, someone will get away with not wearing a mask on a European flight. I suspect the first to succeed will also not be wearing a kippa.

  • John

    Imagine if we were talking about followers of the Religion of Peace bring profiled and prevented from flying to an event of religious significance instead of followers of the Religion of Abraham.

    How long would the media coverage last? (As opposed to completely ignoring the story – currently the case with the bbc).

  • Vinegar Joe

    “Man,…such jobs don’t suit me. But orders are orders.” – Major Wilhelm Trapp

  • Mr Ed

    Lucky them, being denied transport to the East by a German carrier…. If only millions others had been as fortunate.

  • Sam Duncan

    Huh. And in the same week that I read this: “The time SUSE, the German Linux company, banned mentioning Jewish holidays. And then punished the Jew who objected to that action.”.

    (Note that I have no way of verifying this story. However, Bryan recently “came out” as a conservative, and all the denials and attacks on him since publishing it have mentioned this in an offensively critical manner – you know the kind of thing, flinging the usual “-phobe” and “denier” epithets – which is strongly suggestive to me that even if he’s exaggerating, something did happen.)

  • […] asked, “Can you guess what Lufthansa is talking about here?” For a bonus point, can you guess what word, beginning with ‘N’, the German policeman is […]