US Department of Transportation finds Kuwait Airways in violation of the law due to discriminatory nature of the airline’s online booking system, which prevents customers from selecting Israel as their passport-issuing country.

In a challenge to boycotts of Israel, the U.S. government has found that Kuwait Airways unlawfully discriminated against a passenger traveling on an Israeli passport by refusing to sell him a ticket for a New York to London flight.

Eldad Gatt, an Israeli citizen, complained to the Department of Transportation that in 2013 he was unable to buy a ticket from John F. Kennedy Airport i New York to London Heathrow Airport through Kuwait Airways because the airline’s online booking system prevented him from selecting Israel as his passport-issuing country.

The department investigated and initially rejected Gatt’s discrimination complaint, according to a statement and letter provided by transportation officials. But when Gatt appealed the department’s decision, the case was reopened and the department ultimately concluded that the airline had violated a different federal law that the one initially cited by Gatt.

Kuwait Airways
Kuwait Airways

 

“We considered Mr. Gatt’s claim upon an alternative ground … which holds that an ‘air carrier or foreign air carrier may not subject a person, place, port, or type of traffic in foreign air transportation to unreasonable discrimination,'” Blane Workie, DOT’s assistant general counsel for enforcement said in a letter to the airline.

By refusing to transport Israeli citizens to and from the US and a third country that accepts Israeli citizens, in this case the United Kingdom, the airline is in violation of the law, the letter said. “We expect (Kuwait Airways) to sell tickets to and transport Israeli citizens between the US and any third country where they are allowed to disembark based on the laws of that country,” Workie said.

The airline explained that it’s against the law in Kuwait to do business with any Israeli citizen or company, and that punishment for a violation could result in imprisonment and hard labor, according to the department.

“We do not find the interest of Kuwait in the enforcement of its laws in this case to be greater than the interest of the United States in the enforcement of its laws,” the letter said. “It is our view that the US interest in providing nondiscriminatory access to air transportation to an individual traveling from the US to a third country that allows that individual’s entry is greater than Kuwait’s interest in applying its economic boycott of Israel.”

The department has given the airline 15 days to respond. Kuwait Airways officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

This isn’t the first incident of an Israeli being bared from a Kuwait Airways flight: Iris Eliazarov, an Israeli living in Queens filed a lawsuit against Kuwait Airways after she was barred from boarding its flight out of Kennedy Airport because she was an Israeli citizen.

As reported by Ynetnews