Lufthansa misled passengers on Tel Aviv flight that turned back for Munich, only let them off after argument — report

Passengers on a Lufthansa flight from Munich to Tel Aviv that landed in Larnaca, Cyprus, early this morning before turning around and returning to Germany tell Channel 12 that airline staff misled them, including by telling them that they were unable to land in Israel amid the threat of an Iranian attack.

“We were on a direct flight from Munich to Tel Aviv, but we were informed that we had to stop in Larnaca for technical reasons,” two passengers named Ziv and Gefen tell Channel 12.

A short while later, the passengers say the captain told them “that due to the Iranian threat, it was impossible to enter” Israel and they would all be flying back to Munich. “Some of the passengers decided not to go back to Munich. They got off without their luggage.”

Channel 12 plays audio from the plane of an announcement in which a member of the crew says: “There will be no flights to Tel Aviv tonight… in everyone’s best interest … [we will] go back to Munich with everyone on board.” Later he is heard announcing that he would “very much advise you against disembarking. We cannot organize for any bags to be offloaded.”

Another passenger, Granit Noham, tells Channel 12 that the passengers who didn’t want to return to Germany were only allowed to disembark in Larnaca after a quarrel with the airline staff.

Yet another passenger, Jonathan, says they were told that Israel had closed its airspace. “Then they said Lufthansa’s security department had made the decision” not to land in Israel. “They lied to us: They told us nobody would check our passports in Cyprus” if they wanted to get off the plane and find another route home. “They wouldn’t give us the suitcases. The suitcases went back to Munich and we simply entered Cyprus and ordered our own flights [home] via travel agents.”

“The way we were treated was shocking, shameful, disgusting, with constant threats about the police, as though we had done something wrong,” he says.

In a statement this afternoon, the Israel Airports Authority says that the security situation in Israel allows for flights to and from Israel.

“Some foreign airlines are suspending and/or reducing some of their flights to Israel, for their own internal reasons. Passengers must take into account that their return to Israel may be delayed. [Passengers should] keep in touch with the airlines and keep themselves updated about their flights,” the statement adds.

Several major airlines, including Lufthansa, United and Delta, have canceled flights to Israel this week, as the country braces for an expected response to the assassinations earlier this week of Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr in Beirut — after a rocket fired by the terror group killed 12 children in the Golan Heights on Saturday — and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.