Yes, Delta Airlines, thanks to its forthcoming arrangement with Saudi Arabian Airlines, will not permit anyone carrying a “non-Islamic article of faith” on its flights to Saudi Arabia.
As USA Today reports — in a piece that received fairly wide play, including at NRO’s Corner, and the Weasel Zippers blog before it was temporarily or permanently scrubbed. Searching on the article’s lede in Google News now brings up this:
An early version of this story contained incomplete information and has been removed.
For more details on this story go to USA TODAY’s Faith & Reason blog.
But before it was disappeared, here’s what it said:
“JERUSALEM — Jews and Israelis, or passengers carrying any non-Islamic article of faith, will not be able to fly Delta Airlines flights from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia under Delta’s new partnership with Saudi Arabian Airlines.
By Paul Sancya, AP
“Passengers carrying any non-Islamic article of faith will not be able to fly Delta airlines to Saudi Arabia under Delta’s new partnership with Saudi Arabian Airlines.
“Although Delta announced in January that the Saudi airline would join its SkyTeam network next year, the implications of the deal only came to light recently, according to people who have scrutinized the details.
“Saudi Arabia, which is governed by strict Islamic law, requires citizens of almost every country to obtain a visa. People who wish to enter the country must have a sponsor; women, who must be dressed according to Saudi standards of modesty, must be met at the Saudi airport by a man who will act as a chaperone.
“Saudi Arabia bans anyone with an Israeli stamp in their passport from entering the country, even in transit. Many Jews believe the kingdom has also withheld visas from travelers with Jewish-sounding names.
Religious items such as Bibles that are not related to Islam may be confiscated at the airport.
Colby M. May, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, said his office is trying to determine if the agreement runs afoul of U.S. law.
“The very idea that there is a common carrier airline service that would deny an American citizen in America access to their services because they are Jewish or have religious items such as a yarmulke, a cross or a priestly collar, is deeply disturbing,” May said.
May said he is “trying to get answers” from Delta.
“They have not responded in a way that answers the question,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll do so.”
In a statement to Religion News Service on Thursday, Delta said it “does not discriminate, nor do we condone discrimination against any protected class of passenger in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, or gender.”
The airline, which did not deny the new policy, insisted that it has no control over who may fly to Saudi Arabia.
“Delta must also comply with all applicable laws in every country it serves,” adding that passengers are responsible for obtaining the necessary travel documents required for entry.
“If a passenger travels without proper documents, the passenger may be denied entry into that country and our airline may be fined,” the statement said.
The Jan. 10 agreement allows Saudi Arabian Airlines to become a member of SkyTeam in 2012 after “fulfilling all membership requirements,” according to a SkyTeam statement. The Saudi airline is SkyTeam’s first member from the Middle East.
The policy has deeply angered U.S. Jewish groups, especially since Delta is an American carrier.
“Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, should be strongly condemned for its despicable discrimination against Jews,” said Kenneth Bandler, a spokesman for the New York-based American Jewish Committee.
“For an American company, our nation’s values should trump narrow business interests. Delta should be the first to reject Saudi airlines as a SkyTeam member.”
Dan Diker, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, said he hoped “Delta will not be complicit with what appears to be a demonstrably anti-Semitic and racist policy by Saudi Arabian Airlines.”
BOTTOM LINE: If you have ways of getting to your destination other than via Delta, you might want to consider an alternative carrier—one without the taint of subordinating and prostrating itself—and its passengers and shareholders— before the laws of Saudi Arabia.
ht: CHL of Chicago
Update: Delta denies.
How much more can we take from Delta? If airlines continue to run their business as they did in the last couple of weeks they will be lucky to be around next year. The airline industry needs to learn how to run a service based business. Drive the passengers away and you have no business. I just read that the airline industry ranked worst of all industries. Beyond the endless fees, in the last week we heard that airlines did not do proper drug testing, kicked people off for cloth they wore and for being disabled, did not check that employees are legal aliens and tortured us with system crashes. I found a great site to your travel adventures at airlineslodgingetc.com
This is even worse than breaking guitars. Guess they are trying to one-up United in the obnoxiousness sweepstakes.
To be honest, Delta has the right to set the rules however they wish, within the law.
However… consumers also have the right to fly whichever airline they wish, or refuse to fly those that they don’t wish to.
Methinks Delta is about to come face-to-face with consumers that don’t like their rules.
Delta can do without this destination. Antisemitism is clearly the company policy. Do not fly with them evil should not be rewardered
Thanks for proving my point.
Getting upset about this is preposterous. If you fly to Saudi Arabia without a visa–or any other country that requires one–you will not be admitted and will have to turn around and fly home. No airline wants to carry passengers without required visas. It is also true that Saudi Arabia will confiscate your bible. You are subject to local law wherever you go, like it or not. The beef is with Saudi Arabia, not Delta.
Whether or not it’s longstanding Saudi law is irrelevant. Delta was fully aware of these policies when they made the business arrangement. Their claim to not “condone discrimination against any protected class of passenger in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, or gender” is clearly untrue. They’re obviously prepared to look the other way when the Saudi government discriminates against non-muslims.
If the company’s values are for sale, then I’m happy to take my business elsewhere. I have no plans to ever travel to Saudi Arabia, but as long as Delta is partnered with a company that discriminates, I’ll have no plans to fly with them.
Let’s see…
It seems to me that the Kingdom has all sorts of rules that could make for some interesting travel plans, for example:
- Un-escorted women? Yes? – Permission for eldest male relative? Yes?
- Men and women segregated( they are on all other forms of public transport and gathering , so why not this)?
- And perhaps the funnest one of all, a strict no homosexuals policy?( Big fans of ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ out there in the kingdom, just ask anyone!)
This is why they didn’t have airliners in the 9th century. Its just too hard to manage.
I can see the lights are on at the marketing department at Virgin Airlines. It looks like they working overtime and ordering pizza like crazy.
I wonder why….
Dhimmi Air
Saudi Arabia, which is the author of this intolerant, extremist, and all-too-Muslim policy, is doing nothing differently, so why treat this as news? I also doubt this policy is new for Delta, or any other carrier which flies to that Muslim sewer, so again, why is this treated as news!?
Western media (including PJM) likes to retail the lie that Iran is the greatest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, but Saudi Arabia is. It funds the vast majority of mosques outside the Muslm world – it also funds virtually every Muslim group and lobby infiltrating the West with Islam’s cancer. Sunni Muslims, for whom Saudi Arabia is the center of the univers, are responsible for the majority ( more than 17,000 deadly Islamic terror attacks since 9/11) of Islamic violence in the world. See a terror plot unfold, and the verminous nation of Saudi Arabia is probably lurking in its shadows.
Frankly, our media, and this includes PJM, aren’t much better than Delta as long as they keep playing games and distorting the central role of Islam in terrorism in the world, or depicting Iran as the central threat. This gives the cesspool of Saudi Arabia a pass.
Islam is a cancer which threatens to consume the world. It is already waging a major world war called “Jihad”. Muslims are aliens – enemies – their evil ideology must be exposed and relentlessly opposed.
Absolutely.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are two ‘allies’ the Western world can do without.
Saudi Arabia funds extremists, anti-western and anti-democratic lawfare, anti-semitist goups and terrorists all over the world.
And every US president (Including Bush) protects this islamo-fascist state.
Filipinos working in the kingdom have for years reported that bibles and rosaries were confiscated on arrival. My neice had her rosary taken away from her when she worked there as a nurse.
The dirty little secret it that there are over a million Christians living in Saudi, mostly overseas workers, but no churches are allowed.
But hardly anyone in the US seems upset about it. Maybe this latest report will open folks’ eyes to the strict paranoid Islam that the Saudis are spreading throughout the world via their funding of mosques and madrasses…
Don’t hold your breath.
Money talks and your ‘leaders’ are bought with petro-dollars.
Complain about it and they will call you a racist, a bigot and an islamophobe.
Don’t feel too badly about this, folks. Hell, Saudi Arabia is just about the only country that routinely opens the bags of diplomats arriving in the country to search for both bibles and Playboy type materials.
Saudi doesn’t promote itself as a “tourist” destination, so if you are actually planning to travel there one presumes it is for business purposes. And, in fact, Saudi is a sovereign nation which can set its laws regulating travel any way it likes. If you don’t like it, don’t go there. If you don’t like Delta complying with laws which all other airlines much comply with, well, that’s the way of things. Do you think Saudi Airlines can get away with not complying with TSA rules for people flying from Saudi to the U.S.? Right, didn’t think so.
Fly the dhimmini skies of Delta (I know, wrong jingle)…
I’ll believe that Islam is a peaceful and loving religion…. sorry, had to stop laughing …. as soon as a non-denominational church and a synagogue are built in Mecca and Medina. Until then, they can basically go to hell.
…and Delta is adding S.A. Airlines to its “SkyTeam.” That is, it is entering into a unique business arrangement with S.A. Airlines, described in the story above as a “partnership.”
Therefore, Delta deserves all the opprobrium for partnering with S.A. Airlines.
By the way, I have to run out the door to work, or I’d look this up myself…
Is El Al a member of Delta’s SkyTeam?
It was also Delta who charged our returning soldiers for their checked baggage. Is Delta an agent for the Saudis?
Well, you have to admire the Saudi’s confidence in their culture. I only wish WE were so aggressive in protecting our values.
Especially since our values aren’t 12th century barbarism.
James, you are so right. If there is one thing we can, and should take from the Muslims it is their passion for their beliefs and their willingness not only to defend them but advance them.
We in the West who aren’t blinded by political correctness, have long seen Islam for the barbarism that it is, but we do nothing but talk. Listing the endless abuses of humanity by Islam is so easy it requires almost no effort.
What we must do is not only defend Western values but advance them as well.
We need to make plans for isolating Islam instead of searching Nuns.
There are no Delta flights to Saudi Arabia. There are no Delta code-share flights to Saudi Arabia. Ignorance and stupidity are fighting it out in this article. So far, both are winning.