Ryanair flight attendant announces plane’s arrival to ‘Occupied Palestine’ prior to landing in Tel Aviv

Last week, a flight attendant for the budget airline Ryanair announced to passengers towards the flight’s end that the plane would soon land in Tel Aviv, "Occupied Palestine," according to reports.

The CEO of Ryanair, Eddie Wilson, later sent a letter of apology to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, calling the flight attendant's words “an innocent mistake,” affirming that it is not company policy “to refer to Tel Aviv as being in any country other than Israel.”

Several passengers on the flight spoke to Israeli media, disputing that the incident was a mistake.

In fact, passengers reportedly confirmed that when they asked the flight attendant to correct the announcement, she refused. One passenger, who tried to photograph the flight attendant to document the event, was threatened with arrest, according to Channel 12 news.

According to reports, none of the Ryanair flight attendants on the flight to Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion International Airport were wearing name badges, making it difficult to identify the flight attendant who made the announcement.

“It is wholly unacceptable that on a flight from Italy to Tel Aviv, a member of Ryanair staff would repeatedly broadcast their own political ideology over the facts by stating that the flight in question was landing in Palestine, rather than in Israel,” said Jackie Goodall, executive director of the Ireland Israel Alliance, a Dublin-based NGO.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Simon Wiesenthal Center associate dean, sent a letter to Ryanair:

“How would Ryanair react if their flight attendant on a flight to Dublin announced multiple times that passengers would soon be arriving in the United Kingdom?”

While welcoming the company’s apology, the rabbi said, “Everyone is entitled to their opinions but not to alternative facts.”

Ryanair, which is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, reportedly apologized to Israel's ambassador to Ireland, stating that the mistake would not be repeated.

“Israel is an important partner for Ryanair,” Wilson wrote, adding: “We are Israel's second-largest airline and we plan to continue to invest in Israel to grow traffic and connectivity both for Israelis traveling to Europe and also to bring much-needed inbound tourism to Israel.”

This is not the first time Israeli passengers have complained of ill-treatment by Ryanair staff. Last year, the company selected 50 passengers on a flight from Berlin to Tel Aviv for thorough security checks, causing the passengers to miss their flight.