Air France under fire for omitting Israel from map

Air France issues an apology, saying the error was due to a map scale and display problem

Air France on Tuesday said it “deeply regrets” omitting Israel from an in-flight map following outrage on social media.

The photo of the map which was posted on the Facebook page of a pro-Israel organisation, Stand With Us, sparked outrage as the map only showed West Bank and Gaza Strip but ommitted Israel.

Other members of the group’s Facebook page also began posting their own photos of the map and the organisation advised them to write to Air France to protest against the omission.



Soon after, Air France apologised to more than a dozen Twitter users who raised the issue. "Air France deeply regrets this incident. It is due to a map scale and display problem which is currently being resolved," it said.

@Israel24x7 Air France deeply regrets this incident. It is due to a map scale and display problem which is currently being resolved. 1/3

— Air France FR (@AirFranceFR) August 3, 2015

@omniprince Hello Matt, we are working on this and we are confident that the issue will be resolve soon. We appreciate the inconvenience 1/2

— Air France FR (@AirFranceFR) August 3, 2015

Read: Following threats, fighter jets escort Air France flight to New York

In a letter to Air France chairman, the Simon Wiesenthal Center director for international Relations, Dr Shimon Samuels, noted that, “French members of our center have sent us reportedly captured shots from the English and French language of an Air France flight-path, taken last week between New York and Paris, and the locations ‘Israel’ and ‘Tel Aviv’ are glaringly absent.”

He further wrote, “We are asked whether Air France has succumbed to the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] campaign to delegitimise the Jewish State by literally wiping it off the map?”

Read: Disadvantaged: Air France staff seeks retrenchment benefits

A similar incident happened in 2009, when British Midland International Airlines, a subset of British Airways, apologized for omitting Israel from their in-flight maps, and attributed their mistake to a technical error.

This article originally appeared on The Jerusalem Post.