Israeli flying aboard an aircraft of the Spanish airline Iberia have accused the pilot of saying “Welcome to Palestine” as they approached Tel Aviv. The company, it ensures that they have not heard.
While they were comfortably settled in their seats on the flight that was to take them to Tel Aviv, Israeli passengers thought I heard the plane’s pilot pronounce the word ‘Palestine’ to approach the airport.
While many of went into a rage, downright deciding to do battle with the pilot who had shut themselves up in the cockpit, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, others found themselves in prostration more total.
“My family and I were terribly offended,” has said a passenger who wrote a protest letter to Iberia, Israeli media reported.
The Israeli Embassy in Madrid complained to the Spanish company, do we said to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
‘Palestina’ or simply ‘Destino’?
Initially, Iberia apologized. But after checking the records, the company spoke of a “translation error” on the part of passengers including English and Spanish.
In fact, after saying the word “Tel Aviv” in its announcement in English, the pilot would have simply decided to slightly modify its announcement in Spanish by saying something like, “you got to,” creating confusion for passengers.
“The company and the crew regret malentenu that could be caused by the similarity of Spanish words like ‘destino’ and ‘Palestina’,” said Iberia in a statement.
“The word ‘Palestine’ was not used in the ad (driver),” said the company. “The captain followed the standard procedure, which provides that the names of the airports of departure and arrival are appointed and not those of the countries, regions and territories,” she added.
Israeli media, meanwhile said that, in his announcement in English the pilot had mentioned that Tel Aviv.
Israel does not recognize an independent state for the Palestinians. In 2012, Palestine was granted the status of “non-member observer state of the United Nations” and in September, the Palestinians were allowed to hoist their flag at the UN headquarters in New York.
Last April, the French company Air France had denied having voluntarily eliminated the State of Israel cards distributed in-flight to passengers, ensuring put “every effort to correct this situation as soon as possible.”
In 2009, a subsidiary of British Airways apologized because of a similar problem for Israel on its maps displayed in flight.
RT en Français (via Google Translate)