The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has fined Lufthansa $4 million for discriminating against passengers, the largest such penalty ever against an airline for civil rights violations.
The German airline allegedly sanctioned dozens of Jewish passengers who were travelling from New York to Budapest with a stopover in Frankfurt, in May 2022, DOT said on 15 October.
“Based on the alleged misconduct of some passengers, Lufthansa prohibited 128 Jewish passengers – most of whom wore distinctive garb typically worn by Orthodox Jewish men – from boarding their connecting flight in Germany,” the DOT says.
“Despite many of the passengers not knowing each other nor traveling together, passengers interviewed by DOT investigators stated that Lufthansa treated them all as if they were a single group and denied them boarding for the alleged misbehaviour of a few.”
“Non-compliant individuals were not named, and Lufthansa staff recognised that the refusal to transport the entire group could result in the exclusion of passengers that had complied with crew instructions on LH401 but concluded it was not practical to address each passenger individually,” the DOT adds.
The DOT had received more than 40 discrimination complaints after the incident, and its investigation showed that the group that had been prevented from boarding their continuing flight was much larger. The airline had “failed to identify any one passenger who failed to follow crewmember instructions”.
The captain of the New York-Frankfurt flight had alerted security, which led to a hold being placed on passengers’ tickets with Budapest as the final destination, which prevented them from boarding their connecting flight.
“No one should face discrimination when they travel, and today’s action sends a clear message to the airline industry that we are prepared to investigate and take action whenever passengers’ civil rights are violated,” adds US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg. “We will continue to push the industry to serve passengers with the fairness and dignity they deserve.”
For its part, Lufthansa says that after the incident, it “co-operated continuously and fully” with US authorities, and “initiated numerous other measures” including a collaboration wtih the American Jewish Committee.
“As part of this collaboration, we have, for example, developed a training program for our managers and employees in order to best live up to our values in practice,” the airline says. “Lufthansa sees itself as an ambassador for tolerance, diversity and acceptance and was the first airline to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of anti-Semitism.”
Lufthansa will report third-quarter earnings on 29 October.
