A woman found herself forced to change seats on a KLM plane after a man, an Orthodox Jew, refused to sit next to her. The airline is accused of discrimination by the Dutch Human Rights Council.
In 2019, the wife of Dutch Socialist MP Ronald van Raak found herself forced to change places on a flight from New York to Amsterdam, operated by the company KLM. In a judgment handed down on Thursday, the body responsible for ensuring respect for human rights stressed that the couple had been "confronted by an Orthodox Jewish man who refused to sit near the bride because of his gender and his beliefs."
"Dutch airline KLM discriminated against a female passenger by forcing her to change seats on a plane because of an Orthodox Jewish man's refusal to sit next to her. 'a woman", said the Dutch Human Rights Council.
During the incident, the flight crew asked the van Raaks to "to cooperate in order to solve this problem " in order to give back "the boarding process as smooth as possible". However, "The Orthodox Jewish man was not held accountable for his behavior, and he was not made to understand that there were discriminatory aspects" in his attiture, regrets the Council. In addition, unlike the van Raak"The Orthodox Jewish man or the group he was a part of were not urged to cooperate to resolve the placement issue that arose because of his positions."
The authority then considers that KLM has simply shown "gender discrimination against the couple by failing to provide an environment free of discrimination during the flight. "
Ronald van Raak said he was satisfied with the judgment. He then called on the airline to change its procedures on board. "It is in the public interest that every woman can count on the reassurance of not being discriminated against on board a KLM flight", said the deputy.
This is not the first time that the airline has been singled out for discrimination against women. Already last year, KLM had been accused of "to shame women's bodies" after a nursing mother was forced to cover up on a San Francisco-Amsterdam flight so as not to offend other passengers on the plane.