EasyJet pays damages to woman forced to move by ultra-Orthodox Jewish men

EasyJet has paid compensation to a woman who was forced to move twice on flights from Tel Aviv to London after ultra-Orthodox Jewish men said they did not want to sit next to a woman.

Thirty-eight-year-old Melanie Wolfson was asked if she would swap seats with a man a few rows ahead of her so that she would not be sitting next to an ultra-Orthodox man and his son.

Saying she was “insulted and humiliated”, she refused to move from the seat which she had paid extra for. However, she eventually agreed, fearful that she would cause the flight to be delayed. She went on to make a formal complaint to the airline.

Three months later, on another flight with EasyJet, Wolfson was asked to move again, she once again refused.

She made a second complaint and having had no response, sued the company claiming the airline had acted in a discriminatory manner.

She had claimed £15,000 in compensation and won the case, although it is not clear how much EasyJet had been asked to pay.

The airline said: “EasyJet is committed to tackling any discrimination on flights… We take this very seriously and in addition to compensating Ms Wolfson for her experience, easyJet intends to implement additional crew training and renew our crew guidelines in order to prevent these incidents from happening in the future.”

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