The incident took place on Flight 2878 traveling from Miami to New York on Sunday night.
By David Isaac, World Israel News
Frontier Airlines kicked a religious Jewish family off a flight from Florida to New York on Sunday and later cancelled the flight, The New York Post reports on Monday.
Frontier claimed a “large group” of passengers refused to wear masks, but a video shows the religious Jewish family in question wearing masks. The family involved claims they were ejected because of a maskless baby.
The baby was 18 months old. Airlines are only requiring masks on children over the age of two.
A passenger, Hershey Greenbaum, confirmed to the Post that the child appeared to be the cause of the family’s ejection from the plane.
“We were all on the plane when they [flight attendants] came on and saw the 18-month-old baby without a mask,” Greenbaum told the Post.
The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council tweeted a video of the incident, stating, “staff told a Hasidic couple to get off because their 18 month old had no mask. Applause is heard as the couple started leaving. Travels say on camera that the applause came from staff who also cheered that ‘we did it.'”
Frontier denies that the issue was one baby: “To be clear, the issue did not stem from a child under the age of two.”
“Multiple people, including several adults, were asked repeatedly to wear their masks and refused to do so,” the airline said.
“Based on the continued refusal to comply with the federal mask mandate, refusal to disembark the aircraft and aggression towards the flight crew, local law enforcement was engaged,” the airline said in its statement.
Greenbaum says about 15 police officers were involved. He said that most of the plane’s passengers sided with the family. “Most of the people were against it, Jewish or not Jewish, why are you picking on an 18-month-old kid?”
Other Orthodox Jews on the flight were not ejected. One Orthodox woman could be heard saying in the video, “What are you accomplishing?”
Another Orthodox man then said, “You’re going to pay the consequences.”
The incident took place on Flight 2878 traveling from Miami to New York “until the disagreement forced all passengers to deplane and reschedule a flight for the next morning,” the Post reports.