Vueling’s Antisemitism Controversy: What A Bizarre Situation

Over the past few days, Spanish ultra low cost carrier Vueling has made global headlines, over an incident that happened onboard an aircraft. Specifically, this occurred on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, on Vueling flight VY8166 from Valencia (VLC) to Paris (ORY). Onboard this flight were roughly 50 Jewish children (ages 10-15), who were coming back from a summer camp, and they all ended up being removed from the aircraft.

What’s so strange here is how wildly different the versions of events are, depending on who you ask. Several OMAAT readers have asked me to cover this, but I haven’t done so until now, because I’m honestly not sure what to say. So let me share what we know about this incident, presenting both sides, and then I’ll share my take, based on analyzing those claims.

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Jewish children claim they were kicked off flight for singing

This story went viral when we heard the version of events from the children and camp director, who were all removed from this flight. According to their version of events, they were singing Hebrew songs during boarding, and while the plane taxied to the runway.

The crew initially asked them to stop, but then escalated the situation, and the plane returned to the gate. Police were called, and ordered the children and camp director off the plane.

The children were told they had to put their phone downs so they couldn’t record what was going on. The camp director intervened, arguing that the order was illegal. She was then restrained, and taken away. The camp director was reportedly forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and was eventually released.

Below is one of the student’s version of events. Interestingly, she makes no mention of singing, but instead claims that they had a joke at camp where one person would say “lilmod” (the Hebrew word for learning), and then they shout “mashiah” (messiah). She claims that the whole thing lasted two seconds, but then the crew got very mad and they returned to the gate.

Here’s how Israel’s Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Amichai Chikli, described this incident:

“The woman arrested and beaten is the summer camp director. 50 Jewish children from France, ages 10 to 15, were singing Hebrew songs on board. The Spanish airline crew called Israel a terrorist state and had them removed. The group is still stuck in Valencia, trying to return to France. We’ve seen many antisemitic incidents recently—but this is among the worst.”

One other detail that’s being brought up is that the captain of this flight trained two 9/11 terrorists at a flight school in Florida roughly 25 years ago.

Vueling claims the children were disruptive, causing issues

Vueling has a completely different version of what happened, and you’d think we’re not even talking about the same flight. According to the airline, the children on the flight engaged in disruptive behavior and adopted a confrontational attitude, in breach of air safety laws, which require passengers to comply with safety regulations and follow crew instructions.

The crew claims to have been alerted that the group of passengers was tampering with safety equipment, including attempting to release life jackets, tampering with overhead oxygen masks, and removing high pressure oxygen cylinders. Furthermore, the children disrupted the mandatory safety demonstration, and repeatedly disobeyed crew member instructions.

Despite increasingly severe warnings from the crew, making the potential consequences clear, the behavior persisted. The safety demonstration was interrupted three separate times, impacting other passengers’ ability to hear the safety briefing.

In response, the crew requested help from the flight deck, and the first officer went to review the situation, and spoke to the teenagers and supervising adults. Unfortunately the behavior persisted, so the plane returned to the gate, and the police had to get involved. After assessing the situation, the police proceeded to disembark the group.

The airline also notes that the Spanish captain of the flight has been at the airline since 2006, and has accumulated more than 12,500 hours at the carrier. He previously worked as a flight instructor in Florida, and in that capacity, he trained more than 100 pilots from around the world.

My take on this Vueling antisemitism controversy

I obviously wasn’t on this flight, so I can’t speak firsthand as to what happened. And even among the people who were on the flight, they have wildly different takes.

Let me start by saying that of course antisemitism is real, and happens a lot. However, not every incident involving a Jewish person is a case of antisemitism (similarly, as a gay person, I think homophobia is real among some, but I don’t assume that every time something happens, that’s the cause).

Here are a few thoughts that come to mind:

• There’s some inconsistency as to what the children claim happened; some say they were just singing for a long period, while others say it lasted two seconds, and just involved shouting
• While it’s possible it’s not true, Vueling makes very specific claims about the behavior that the kids engaged in, so if they just totally made up those claims, that’s beyond unconscionable
• The fact that the captain trained 9/11 terrorists is in my opinion a distraction; flight instructors take whatever students they can get, they’re trying to build hours, and I don’t see any reason to believe that this makes him a terrorist sympathizer, or that he knew 9/11 was going to happen, or something
• I was once a kid, and kids do act up, and are hard to rein in; I went to a Catholic all boys high school, and I remember in my Spanish class, my classmates would have a competition to see who could yell “[use your imagination]” the loudest, until the point that someone would have to go to the principal’s office
• It would require a lot of coordinated antisemitism for six crew members to all be onboard with calling the police over a non-event

That being said:

• Is it possible that the kids were actually being disruptive, but that their religion caused the crew to perhaps take a harsher stance than they would’ve taken if they weren’t Jewish? Absolutely, because subconscious (or conscious) biases definitely impact how we act toward people…
• The police’s reaction seems like a complete overkill, and I’m confused; based on searching online, it doesn’t seem like filming police officers is illegal in Spain, so on what basis did they essentially force children to put their phones down, as if they’re weapons, or something?

Have we seen any reports from passengers onboard who weren’t part of this group, sharing their take on how this situation unfolded? I’d think that this would give us the most unbiased take on this, especially given how far apart the claims are.

Bottom line

Spanish ultra low cost carrier Vueling is getting a lot of attention over a recent incident, whereby roughly 50 Jewish children were kicked off a plane. What’s wild is the range of perspectives on what happened.

On one of the spectrum, you have the claim that kids just sang for a short time, and the crew called Israel a terrorist state, returned to the gate, and called the police. Then the other perspective is that the kids were disruptive over and over, interrupted the safety demonstration, played with all kinds of safety equipment, and refused to cooperate, no matter how many times they were warned of the consequences.

I don’t know what the truth is here. Is one party just completely making stuff up, is the truth somewhere in the middle, or what?