American airline JetBlue on Sunday announced it is changing its onboard maps on all carriers, to comply with U.S. guidelines for the Middle East, after Israel was labeled there as "Palestinian Territories."
In a message to Ynet, the company said its mission and values are that customers feel welcome and safe onboard. "We’re sorry for the concern this has caused. We can assure you that no one on the JetBlue team was involved with drawing or labeling the map of the region and we were not previously aware of the issue."
After the public outrage expressed over the maps displayed on board JetBlue flights, the company said that the map app was provided to the airline by a third-party company, which they license from a specialty technology company.
"After a careful review, we have decided to switch to a new map vendor. While our content provider works on making this transition, we have also asked the current vendor to adjust our onboard map so that it aligns with the U.S. government’s map guidance for the region. We are making these changes as quickly as the technology allows."
The removal of Israel from the map angered a Jewish passenger who called out the airline but that was not the first time JetBlue was called out for possible anti-Israel bias. In April, a Jewish passenger was ousted from a flight after complaining about a flight attendant wearing a "Free Palestine" pin on his uniform.
JetBlue apologized to the passenger and announced that it would change its policy.
"We hope with these actions we can welcome him back onto a JetBlue flight in the future," the company said, at the time.