‘Delete The Video!’ American Airlines Traveler Confronts Flight Attendant Over ‘Antisemitic’ Pin—Police Intervene And Take His Side – View from the Wing

Video from an American Airlines flight to Miami this past week shows a dispute between a Jewish passenger and members of the cabin crew over a flight attendant wearing a watermelon-themed pin that’s meant to symbolize solidarity with Palestine. Employees who aren’t allowed to wear Palestine flag pins often wear this instead. The passenger accused the crew member of supporting terrorism and antisemitism. They demanded he delete the video.

The man approached two female flight attendants, one wearing the pin, and recorded the interaction. He accused them of antisemitism, while they say he isn’t allowed to record them and that he touched one of them. They wouldn’t let him leave the plane while police were called. Police backed him up on the recording, and the footage is being shared broadly online.

According to American Airlines,

We want every customer who flies with us to have a positive travel experience. A member of our team has reached out to the customer to learn more about their experience.

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American Airlines uniform standards simply do not allow these pins. Wearing your own pin that is not company-issued (such as part of a company-sponsored affinity group) is not permitted. Here’s the version of the company’s flight attendant uniform standards that were issued when the current uniforms came out.

Here are some of the allowable pins (not that different work groups have different allowable pins).

Flight attendants break company policy all the time. We saw Let’s Go Brandon pins a few years ago. From time to time the airline will crack down on violations.

Meanwhile, several airlines have had controversies with their crew over support for a Palestinian state and even Hamas. It’s put Delta in damage control mode and caused JetBlue to tighten its uniform policy.

United Airlines, for the past few years the U.S. carrier whose politics have leaned farthest left, concocted the argument that flight attendants aren’t violating uniform standards by wearing Palestine pins because they are ‘language pins’ (that crewmembers speak Palestinian?). United has also refused to say whether a pilot who celebrated the atrocities committed by Hamas on 10/7 still flies for them.

There’s little question that the civilian plight in Gaza is heartbreaking, though as the Current Thing it has gotten far more attention over the past decade than perhaps the world’s greatest refugee crisis in Syria where over half the nation’s Muslims were forced to leave their homes. It is more difficult to use the situation in Syria as a bludgeon against Israel and Jews. Meanwhile, every statement about the plight in Gaza should accurately end with “because of Hamas.”

It is possible to wear a Palestinian flag and believe you’re advocating for two states. That isn’t usually what it means. Spain, Ireland and Norway now recognize a Palestinian State. The Catalan independence movement would like a word!

There’s a real concern with front line airline employees voicing political positions and aiming those at passengers. The issue is asymmetric speech. Airline employees exercise power over passengers – power over whether they’ll board and fly, or whether they’ll be considered “disruptive” for expressing their own contrary opinions. And bringing politics into the cabin is already enough of a problem with passengers.

(HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)