Swiss flies 2 widebodies every day between Zurich and Tel Aviv and is one of the few airlines with lie-flat business class seats between Europe and Tel Aviv.
But apparently flying to Tel Aviv isn’t political, while putting Tel Aviv on a map is political.
I’m not sure when a city name became political, but Swiss’ inflight map shows the city of “Esh Sheikh Muwannis” on the Mediterranean Sea where Tel Aviv ought to be. Esh Sheikh Muwanni was a village that hasn’t existed since before the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, but it gets the nod over Tel Aviv on the Swiss inflight map.
StandWithUs called them out on Twitter and here is Swiss’ lame response to them about “negative feelings” and being “politically neutral”:
we apologise for having caused negative feelings. As a privately owned company, we are politically neutral with no intent to make political statements. Our procedure with this standardised map is to turn it off, which didn't work accurately on this specific flight.
— Swiss Intl Air Lines (@FlySWISS) October 4, 2018
Swiss meant to turn off the map? Is that supposed to help when they land in Tel Aviv airport?
How is replacing a major city with a village that hasn’t existed in 70 years being politically neutral?
What do you make of Swiss’ bizarre behavior and explanation?
Accidentally on purpose!
Of all places in Israel to highlight…is that Dimona under the plane?
Also Dan, your B&H post disappeared when you posted this one. Not the first time I’ve noticed posts disappear from your site.
Lol, looks like it.
That post was removed upon request.
Request by whom? Was hardly posted. I also have seen posts disappear when new ones are posted
What was the deal?
Rather pathetic and foolish on BH to request a posting be removed over a government taxation policy which they have no control over. It would reflect better on them to stand by and be prepared to answer questions so as to attract potential business
I’m fine with it. El Al doesn’t recognize a Palestinian state. Airlines can make there own choice. Boycott them if you want, but all things about borders and boundaries are political, this is just more obvious because you don’t like the decision. Not a big deal imho.
Why does the city of Tel Aviv have to do with borders and boundaries?
Tel Aviv is a city of 500K people.
Esh Sheikh Muwannis hasn’t existed in 70 years.
Actually it very clearly shows he city of Tel Aviv in Green and “Tel Aviv” is the label at the top of the image.
That is the destination city of the flight, but the city itself doesn’t appear on the in-flight map. It’s replaced with a non-existent village.
A lot of cities aren’t on the inflight map image that is in this post. Jerusalem for one. Let’s leave aside that Esh Sheikh Muwannis doesn’t still exist, Tel Aviv is clearly demarcated by the Green Circle next to the non existent city, and referred to as the destination. Was the screen zoomed in enough that the two city names can fit side by side? I’d give Swiss the benefit of the doubt unless there is also video that the zoomed in screen didn’t have tel aviv.
If it was just missing it would be OK.
But to replace a city of 500K people with a village that hasn’t existed in 70 years is being highly political. Full stop.
In the region, all city names, not just boundaries or borders are political. For example, do you call Gilo it’s own city or do you call it Jerusalem. If you call it a neighborhood of Jerusalem then you are taking a political position in that Jerusalem boundaries have now expanded into West Bank. Tel Aviv, as you noted, was a village before it was Tel Aviv and the big city was Jaffa. If you want to get technical, the airport in Tel Aviv actually sits in the city of Lod.
Google Earth has the old Arabic name too.
https://maps.google.com/?q=Al-Shaykh+Muwannis%2C+Tel+Aviv-Yafo%2C+Israel&ftid=0x151d49648b358d97:0x618386cdd3aa2ef
Maybe we should boycott Google too?
Google earth doesn’t replace Tel Aviv with the village name. It shows the village within Tel Aviv-Yafo.
Dan’s point goes more towards the inherent hypocrisy of claiming to be neutral and not taking a side, when Swiss Air is clearly taking a side. Refusing to call Tel Aviv by its name, which would be the natural thing to do because that is what the city that exists is called, regardless of whether you like or support the city’s existence, is clearly making a political statement.
So true
There is no Palestinian state
Of course El Al doesn’t recognise a Palestinian state. There isn’t one.
Eotal Jordanian doesn’t show a Palestinian state or a 67 style border on their in flight map. Thought that was interesting.
Go get a life
I recently flew on Air France and on the route map it shows all the Arab countries capitals and it shows “GAZA” on the map but won’t even show ONE Israeli city on the map until you zoom in 5 times!!!!!! Didn’t know “GAZA” was a bigger city than Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, etc…..UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!
Actually Gaza city is only slightly smaller than the city of Tel Aviv and yet has a higher population.
Maybe the plane is a time machine
Which other airlines have the lie-flat business class between Israel and Europe?
Off the top of my head:
BA from LHR
El Al from LHR
El Al from CDG
Air Europa from MAD
Iberia from MAD
Didn’t UX also upgrade their TLV service?
Added.
Last I checked (on my last flight) Turkish also had
BA and ELAL between LHR and TLV
Will never fly Swisssair again. Disgusting. Shame on them.
Did you stop flying ElAl when they disrespect observant Jews all the time?? or when they make fun of Shabbos?? Or you are just a Zionist first and a Jew 2nd??? (or 6th)
They cater and cave to haredim way more often than they should. If you buy a ticket, sit in the seat. Otherwise buy 2 like people who are overweight. Don’t hold up a flight into you force someone out of their own seat.
You call that El al making fun? I call it capitulation and a chillul hashem
No–I am a frum Jew first and a Zionist second. I fly LY because it’s safe. I ignore the other people and I never change my seat when asked. Too bad.
This is like the ‘Taiwan’ situation.
China wants airlines to say only Taipei and have no mention of Taiwan 🙁
The map was probably supplied by a BDS terrorist, and the reps on Twitter is injecting their own opinion here. Obviously, corporate couldn’t be bothered to fix it. But hopefully they will learn their lesson big time. I already resolved not to fly Swiss 2 years ago. Huge two facers.
Next they will replace Germany with Prussia.
Then NYC with new Amsterdam.
This way we will stay consistent and neutral.
The Swiss have always been anti Semitic.
FYI, doing something against Israeli interests isn’t anti Semitic.
Thanks for writing about this.
Everyone please comment on that Twitter thread and get them to regret this move big time.
Who cares?
Does it make a difference to anybody ?
My chulent is bubbling nicely. That is all that matters
Who cares? How about rivers of Jewish blood bubbling along with your chulent because of the legitimaticy such a move gives to the haters of Jews (not only Israelis! Don’t be blind!)! With every pro-Palestinian move, the haters of Jews worldwide are emboldened and Jews are killed in Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Israel and (yes) the USA!
As an aside that makes all the journalists, and anyone else who attempts to be “even handed” (ahem!), an accomplice in the murder of innocent Jews and will burn in Hell for the spilling of innocent blood.
I have no idea what you are trying to say .
Again who cares and how does it affect “Jewish blood“ if Swiss air puts on a city on thier map or not?.
Looks like you weren’t taught reading comprehension either in school. Read the comment again.
Do not fly Swissair
At least we now know the name of the person that told Swiss to do this, the AS appears above several times
No, even Turkish is better.
Know what your adversaries think. (How many “Palestinians” got their degrees from TAU? I would guess more than ever lived there pre 1948.
https://youtu.be/XgQipCLNWJY
What is a Palestinian?
Delta did this once by claiming a destination to be “Occupied Palestinian territories” . To all those who want a good laugh, some one called them to “order” a ticket to that destination : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_tp3Lp4z_I
Yup,
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/airlines/delta/hey-delta-which-airport-in-occupied-palestinian-territory-does-you-or-a-partner-fly-to/
Darn.my cholent got burned reading this article.i think it depends who made the flight map and that may not have anything to do with swiss
Then why would Swiss respond the way they did?
i recently saw a map on a reputable website that had the Lower East Side of Manhattan listed as Jewtropolis. While it is possibly a political statement, I tend to doubt Swiss intentionally put the name of that town on its map, rather it was an anti-Semitic hacker group that changed the name of the city on its mapping service provider.
Then why would Swiss respond the way they did?
Dan, first of all, where does the content in the maps come from? Does Swiss Air program the maps and provide the data in the maps, or does it come from a third service provider? If the map is supplied by a third party provider do we have any idea whether Swiss Air told the third party provider to use Esh Sheikh Muwannis rather than the third service provider making the switch on its own?
Second, the Twitter response to me looks like it was written by a non-native English speaker. I can’t quite tell what they were trying to say. I’m not looking to defend Swiss Air, but I’m trying to be objective and I think I can read this to not be an anti-Israel statement – the rep could have been saying that calling Tel Aviv Esh Sheikh Muwannis is an (anti-Israel) political statement and they had no intent to make that statement which is why their standard procedure is to turn off the Esh Sheikh Muwannis label (and use the Tel Aviv label), but it didn’t work on this flight. (I.e., they could be using an anti-Israel third service provider that tries to sneak in Esh Sheikh Muwannis.) I’m not sure, but I can’t really tell from the response what was meant. I’m also not sure a Twitter response necessarily represents the actual views of the company. I suspect HUCA exists in Twitter responses too. If the board of directors or top executives of Swiss Air had a meeting I’m not sure they would vote against calling Tel Aviv Tel Aviv.
I agree with Stand With Us, that they should change the city name back to Tel Aviv, assuming it is withing their control to do so. I also think it is possible they subscribe to a service that has the cities named incorrectly and it may be beyond their control and as such they said they would “turn it off.”
Oddly enough, this happened as Israelis and Palestinians were marking the 25th anniversary of the Kristiania Accords. I thought maybe Swissair was being politically correct because they had more flights to Muslim countries. Their route map does show Cairo, Dubai and Muscat as destinations, but Cairo is served only once a day with a Bombardier CS300 (now known as the Airbus 220). On the Dubai route, their A330 competes with Emirates. That flight, which goes nowhere near Israeli airspace, continues to Oman.
The leader in inflight maps seems to be Betria Interactive, headquartered in Silicon Valley with a CEO who speaks fluent English and Russian. But its website does not show Swissair as a customer (many major airlines are listed). Now I am curious. Where does Swissair
flew Swiss about 15 yrs ago, Found them to be VERY antiemetic. First thing they announced was that “no more than two people may congregate”- read: no minyan.
I was playing with my PDA when he spotted me, he said: “you are not allowed to use it, and if you don’t shut it immediately I will have you arrested in Paris”. Airplane mode wasn’t good enough for him either (guess he never read the rulebook).
I was in the exit seat and a chasideshe guy came over and asked if he can daven 18 in front of me, of course, yes. As soon as the purser eyed him, he ran to the back galley and came up barreling a trolley into the poor guy. I asked him what’s he doing, his reply was that the guy was disturbing his work. When I told him that he’ll be finished within 2 mins he looked at his watch and said he doesn’t have that much time. I actually asked him why he doesn’t respect the man’s religion, his reply was “because he doesn’t respect my religion”. So I asked him: “Is your religion HATE?” He turned all colors and took his precious trolley and went to the front of the plane.
I WILL NOT TRAVEL ON THAT AIRLINE ANYMORE.
My mistake was not reporting the whole incident to Swiss, IATA, ADL, Agudah, etc.
This is obviously a result of the usual ignorance and the people to complain to are the programmers for the maps. Swiss Air should have promised to see to it that it gets put right, and Stand By us will probably deal with the programming company.
Thanks go to Stand By Us for their great work. The plane lands near Lod, not Tel Aviv, which was called Lydda in Mandate times.
What does KLM or Lufthansa show? They are all guided by a very misguided European Union. They are puppets.
I do not believe that Swiss Air is anti semitic. They were once very kind to me regarding kashrut. I think it may depend on the opinions of individuals in the crew, but in the case of davening in the aisle – come on! anyone can see that it is inconvenient and potentially a security hazard.
Have a sense of proportion folks!
when filing complaint on swiss website these languages are not available
Please complete the form in the selected language. We are unable to process forms in Greek, Turkish or Hebrew.
Tried to file a complaint on the elal website…unfortunately I wasn’t able to do it in Swiss-German.
My last several trips to TEL AVIV have been on Swiss. Unless and until they repair the mistake on their map properly labeling TEL AVIV as such, Swiss May have sold my final ticket on their airline when they sold me my most recent trip, back in April.
Swiss neutral like in 1940 working for nazis. We kniw these neutrals….. Cancel swiis flught to Israel.