Jewish Family Of 5 Booted From JetBlue Flight After Baby Kicks Seat
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A family of five from Brooklyn was sent off a JetBlue flight in Florida, with the reason in dispute.
Tamir Raanan and his wife, Mandy Ifrah, were ready to fly home with their three children from Fort Lauderdale last month when their 1-year-old daughter kicked the seat of the passenger in front of her.
Ifrah told the New York Daily News that she apologized to the woman and then set about calming her child. She also told other news outlets and airport security that the woman told her she should tie her child’s feet down before switching seats.
The airline asserted that after “a verbal altercation that included physical threats,” the family was asked to deplane.
A video of the encounter with airline security taken on Raanan’s cellphone shows Ifrah speaking to her husband in Hebrew at one point. The family is Jewish and the couple are expatriate Israelis.
The airplane returned to the gate and the family was asked to leave the plane. A member of the JetBlue staff told the couple that they would receive a refund for the flight.
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