“We are approaching Palestine,” said one of the crew members of the “Ryanair” airline, the passengers on board the plane coming from the Italian city of Bologna, which was preparing to land at “Ben Gurion” Airport in Tel Aviv, as reported by the Irish newspaper, “The Irish Mirror” in her report.
The incident, according to the newspaper, sparked an interaction on the communication sites, and the newspaper quoted a spokesman for the Irish low-cost airline as saying, “It is just a mistake by a beginner in the crew working on the plane, who declared” by mistake “that the destination is Palestine, not Tel Aviv.” He added that there was “no intent” behind the message, and that “this was an unintentional mistake that was immediately corrected and apologised by a senior member of the crew on board”.
The newspaper said that the incident caused a sensation and comments on “Twitter”, and one of the people wrote: “I wish I was on this flight when the Ryanair hostess announced that the plane’s destination was Palestine.”
Another posted: “That’s why we love you so much Ryanair.” He added, “Ireland stands with Palestine.”
On the other hand, the “World Israel News” website, quoting the Israeli Channel 14, said that the Israeli passengers were shocked after the flight attendant announced several times in Italian and English their final destination as Palestine, not Tel Aviv.
Israeli passengers on board told the Hebrew channel that they had asked the hostess to either correct herself or apologize.
“We didn’t buy tickets on the airline to deal with the anti-Zionist views of the cabin crew,” said one passenger, and “we just wanted to announce that Tel Aviv is in Israel.”
According to them, their requests were refused, and instead the flight crew accused the passengers of creating a disturbance that threatened the safety of the flight.
The channel reported that an Italian-speaking passenger was surprised that the flight attendant insisted during a conversation with her that Tel Aviv is not in the State of Israel, but rather in Palestine.
The website stated that the flight attendant who made the advertisement was not wearing an identification tag, which made it impossible to identify her to file a complaint at a later time.
The Israeli channel stated that one of the passengers, who tried to take a picture of the flight attendant, was told that she would be arrested upon landing if she left her seat in order to obtain a clear picture of the speaker.
