SINGLED OUT: Boro Park Family Prevented from Boarding United Flight in Zurich

YS Gold 

A Boro Park family is stranded in a dark London airport this evening following a horrific day that saw them singled out and prevented from boarding their homebound flight to New York in Zurich, and then pulled off a flight about to leave London. 

“Every stage of this day reeked of being singled out on the part of the United Airlines employees,” the victim told BoroPark24 exclusively from London. 

The saga began when the family showed up in plenty of time for their flight from Zurich to New York. “There were very long lines for check-in,” recalled the victim, “and they began selectively calling people for check-in. I begged them, ‘I am here with eight people; can you help us out?’.

By the time United finally “checked the family in,” it was too late. But that’s not what they were told. “We rushed to the gate, only to find out that the flight had left. The only people left off the flight were our family and another Chassidic Yid… they had not even bothered to send out luggage to the plane, because they knew we would not be boarding,” he said.  

But the saga did not end there. 

“When I approached the United transfer desk, they said they would not help me,” he related. “We begged them to help us, and they finally gave us boarding passes for a flight to London—Even though they knew that we needed boarding passes for the connecting flight to New York, but they intentionally left that out.” 

Arriving in London, the family was able to arrange to get their boarding passes, and were finally settled in their seats. But their travails were not yet over. 

“My wife was on the phone, sharing with a friend all that we had been through today,” he said. “When a flight attendant asked her to shut it off, she indicated to give her one moment. The next thing we knew, police were summoned to the plane to arrest us for disrupting the flight.” 

There was nothing anyone could do, and they were pulled off the plane, into the unknown.  

“The police officers felt terrible for us, and they knew all that had transpired all that day. They encouraged us to take legal action against United, which we are exploring,” the victim told BoroPark24. “But for now, my mind is on where we will be for Shabbos.”