A Jewish passenger said his seat on a JetBlue flight was canceled after he complained about a member of the cabin crew wearing a "Free Palestine" pin. He said the move was "blatant antisemitism." The airline apologized and said it would no longer allow its employees to wear "personal" pins while working.
On April 28 Florida resident Paul Faust, a 54-year-old telecom entrepreneur, flew from South Florida to Las Vegas. After being served a drink, he noticed that the flight attendant was wearing several pins including one with a Palestinian flag and the words Free Palestine.
Faust, who identifies as a Zionist and has been sharing many video posts on social media platforms since the start of the war, said he chose to ignore it because "it's not worth the effort" to argue with her.
However, an Israeli passenger sat next to him, and the two began to discuss the war in Gaza and the anti-Israel demonstrations on campuses across the United States. When the flight attendant came to serve the meal, Faust noticed that she moved her pro-Palestinian pin to the front of her lanyard, leaving the other pins hidden. He interpreted this as a deliberate provocation and approached the front of the plane to speak with the lead flight attendant.
According to him, he told her that he was a frequent flyer and found it very upsetting that the flight attendant chose to wear that particular pin and moved it to the front of the uniform.
The flight attendant offered to talk to her colleague, but Faust asked her to do so only after they disembarked from the plane to avoid unpleasantness. According to him, he only asked her to convey the message that her behavior was "maybe a little insensitive" and made him feel "a little uncomfortable."
When the passengers disembarked from the plane, Faust saw the pin-wearing flight attendant talking to a person dressed in a yellow JetBlue uniform. The flight attendant pointed in Faust's direction and told her colleague, "That's him." The person approached Faust and demanded that he come with him to the passenger service desk – "I need to speak with you," he said.
According to Faust, the supervisor accused him of causing a disturbance on the plane, and the pilot requested to detain him upon landing. He asked Faust to show him his ID, but Faust, stunned by this, refused. The supervisor threatened to call the police, which eventually arrived on the scene. Faust ignored it and left before the police arrived. "I was not going to sit there while he made up lies," he explained.
The next day, Faust, who was supposed to fly back to Florida, opened the airline's application and discovered that his flight booking was canceled without any explanation. He called customer service, and according to him, was told that his flight was canceled because he caused a disturbance on the outbound flight and didn’t listen to the crew's instructions or the supervisor at the gate.
A customer service representative read Faust the comments written about his case, which included a statement from the pin-wearing flight attendant claiming that he said, "Everyone should go to Gaza so they can be killed."
Faust denied this and argued that the only thing he said in a quiet conversation with the Israeli woman sitting next to him was when they were discussing the support that Palestinians receive from the LGBTQ+ community.
According to him, he said he couldn’t understand it because if they were to go to Gaza, they would all be killed. According to Faust, the flight attendant probably listened to his private conversation, but he had no interaction with her and even tried to avoid her in the first place.
Faust posted a video reenacting the incident, which quickly went viral on social media. Many users called for the boycott of JetBlue, and the company, in response, launched an investigation into the incident with testimony from other passengers.
Eventually, the company apologized and said it would change the existing policy that allows flight attendants to wear private pins to "reflect the current environment." The company added it reached out to Faust and apologized for the disruption to his JetBlue flight. "We hope with these actions we can welcome him back onto a JetBlue flight in the future," the company said.