Disrupting operation of an airline flight is a federal offense, and he'll be booked with a felony.

The considerate thing to do would be to explain IN ADVANCE what his needs were, so as to minimize misunderstandings and inconveniences to all involved.

You expect adults to think and be perpective

@flyingphotog:

Clearly, given the text of the article, he won't.

Poor summary of the original article. This occured with people STILL BOARDING. It's not like they were held up by the man while trying to takeoff.

Kinda an important detail to have been left out, no?

The article claimed the aircraft left as scheduled... So he didn't even disrupt the normal timeline.

I think this is a violation of this person's rights.

". . . he explained that he couldn't interrupt his religious ritual and wasn't trying to be rude."

I'm sorry, but having been a frequent (weekly) traveler of anywhere from 500-3000 miles a trip with almost always at least one layover I think this gentleman showed rudeness to everyone on the plane.

It doesn't sound like his prayers caused the delay of the plane, but as another passenger I'd have been irked at the potential that I could have missed a connection.

Perhaps I am insensitive. . .

@ep5760:
I think so. He wasn't delaying the boarding because he was all the way in the back. He didn't obey the flight attendants when they told him to sit down, and they don't tolerate insubordination.

Shouldn't the picture be that of "Air Israel, please clear the runway" from Airplane?

@ep5760: Everyone needs to be in their seats and seat belted BEFORE they can push off a gate. THATS THE LAW

Sorry the guy was completely wrong as are you. He should have said his prayers in the terminal, or not said them at all, not on a boarding plane where he could restrict traffic because you know most planes the stewards are walking around in the back doing their job where he was praying.

Thanks for playing though.

@TakingItSeriously:
I've been a frequent flier as well, and on practically every flight I've been irked by people taking their sweet time stowing baggage, standing around, etc. This guy praying the back of the plane is just one of many potential delays. The airline certainly had a right to throw him off, but they could have been a little tolerant as well. It was their decision.

This points out two very obvious facts.
1. Airlines are stupid. Tell people that they need to be in their seat and not get up before they get on the plane.
2. Religion, in general, promotes stupidity.

If people were still boarding, he wasn't delaying anything. He was an orthodox Jew, which means there are regular prayers to say at specific times - he's not just going to not pray. From my reading of the article, the flight attendants got pissed that he wasn't showing them due respect and booted him.

I'm just wondering what would have happened if prayer time for this gentleman had been timed to occur while the plane was descending for a landing. Would he have unbucked his seatbelt and left his seat to go to somewhere else to pray? Probably not, otherwise we would have heard of this happening more frequently. I travel a great deal and I've never ever seen anything like this happen onboard an airplane.

It just seems like maybe personal exceptions to the prescribed timing of this are made all the time without inconveniencing others as this guy did. Any Hebrew scholars care to chime in? I'm curious to know if this guy was doing something "by the book" (no pun intended) that the rest of the Orthodox population tend to ignore in the modern age. Are local flights in the devout Moslem world, as another example, timed so that they avoid prayer time while in flight?

@scoosdad:
There is a window of several hours for each prayer. I didn't see the flight time, but with a five hour flight to SFO, he may have needed to pray on the plane. Might it have been better to wait until the plane was in the air...possibly.

I also agree that this is a misleading title. If he had been standing in the back of the plane having a private phone conversation, which people said was very important and that he couldn't be interrupted, he would have been treated exactly the same way, and possibly more harshly than this Orthodox Jew. People understand demands of religion.

@loganmo:

You win a hundred internets.

@scoosdad:

I know a bunch of Muslims, and they have separate rules for when they are traveling. For example, they can combine prayers (that would normally have to be done at different times) and do them at the same time, they can pray while sitting if necessary, the times that they must pray are a little more flexible, and the prayers are actually shorter when they are traveling.

Here's a thought, don't start an un-interruptible prayer minutes before a plane is scheduled to take off.

Somehow I doubt god would have minded much to wait a couple minutes.

I was raised jewish and grew up going to an Orthodox synagogue. Even my Rabbi would have told the man that the praying could have waited for a more appropriate time.

The religion is not so strict that things must be done at precisely a certain time. You try to do them at the specific time, IF POSSIBLE.

I am not chastising this man for his faith, but for his misunderstanding of the rules of his faith. The interruption he caused is looked upon as selfishnes within the Jewish faith. And that is as much of a sin as not praying.

The rules of the faith are not inflexible. Unfortunately, this man was.

I don't blame the airline one bit for what they did.

@oakie: Seems like a bit of a broad statement. How many Jews do you know?

@Geminijinx07: Uh, sorry, his requirements to pray at a specific time is his problem to work out, not the airlines. He should have scheduled his flight so as not to interrupt the flight boarding and pre-push safety check, which requires that everyone is in their seat.

BTW I'm Jewish, I've prayed in my seat, and I've flown with Orthodox Jews who have prayed in their seat. I don't get what this guy's excuse was. But don't blame Judaism, there are plenty of morons in every religion.

@oakie: And cheap too, amirite?

/Note: the preceding was sarcasm

If your disrupting public transit, work or traffic with your religious ritual your being a jerk. It doesn't matter what religion it is. If you can't do it without disrupting things or other people's relative peace they just don't.

At least CTA will toss the train preachers off at the next stop.

Please. Since when is praying in the back disrupting the operation of the airline? If he had gone to the pilot and screamed "Turn or burn!!!" while messing with the controls, then that would be disrupting the flight. Other than something like that, no.

@oakie: Any particular reason you're being wildly offensive? Or just for shits and giggles?

@oakie: I swear, I see more offensive, racist, and arrogant statements from you than any other poster on these boards.

It's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to post and remove all doubt. Remember that.

@oakie: Anti-semitic much?
Any other prejudices you'd like to air out?

@Smitherd:
"Please. Since when is praying in the back disrupting the operation of the airline? If he had gone to the pilot and screamed "Turn or burn!!!" while messing with the controls, then that would be disrupting the flight. Other than something like that, no."

When a safety check requires everyone to be in their seats, refusing to go back to your seat is being disruptive.

If he had gone to cockpit and done what you describe, that would be criminal, not merely disruptive. Security would have been called, he would be taken into custody and incarcerated.

@oakie:
"not jews. they tend to exercise a level of entitlement most others could never get away with."

/checks oakie's profile to see if he still has commenting status...

"oakie has no friends."

/not surpised

Doesn't Jezebel or one of the other Gawker sites have a weekly ban update on the posters that are disallowed from posting? I have this week's nomination.

@Smitherd:

And just to be clear, are you suggesting that if I were an Orthodox Jew, and I were crossing a street in a big city, and realized it was time for my prayer, that I could just stop in the middle of the street and start praying?

Because that's exactly what the man in the story was doing. He was delaying the travel of a large number of people for his own needs.

I truly hate when people do what I am about to do but it seems soooooo appropriate in this instance:

@oakie: FAIL

I fly the Montreal-NY route pretty often for business, and things like this happen all the time - although generally they just stand up in their seats.

For example, several months ago there was a group of maybe 10 Hasidic Jews who boarded together. Nothing untoward happened, but right as the plane powered up for takeoff (when they put the engines to full and start to charge down the runway in preparation for rotation) a senior member of the group stood up in his seat, turned to face the rest of the group, and started davening (praying while chanting and rocking back and forth), and the rest of his group started chanting back.

Now, this freaked the shit out of the stewardesses, who couldn't decide if they were supposed to stay in their seats (it was about five seconds after the plan had left the ground) or stand up in a rapidly-ascending plane to get this guy to sit down. In the end, they waited a few minutes until the plane had gotten to cruising altitude, and then went and gave him a talking-to; at which point he was starting to sit down anyways, and professed to speak no English.

His compatriots accepted the talking-to and promised he would never do it again, and that was that - except for when the process started again, in reverse, for landing...

@ any Moderators: What happened to the "report this comment" button? People like oakie show why it was a good idea...

@oakie: Oh man I am feeling so fucking ENTITLED right now! It's exhilarating being a Jew these days, what with the internet and all. I just wish my entitlement somehow helped my understand what the hell perpective is.

I find it odd that they spent time removing him AFTER he was finished praying and done explaining why he couldn't stop.
The problem seemed to be over... yet they still called a guard to remove him.

@KogeLiz: I think they called the guard before the praying ceased.

Corrected Headline:

"Man Ejected From Flight Because He Wouldn't Sit Down"

Jew or Muslim, drunk or sober, Cute or overweight- when the attendant tells you to sit down and buckle up, do it.

That is all.

If the flight attendants didn't understand, or recognized it as prayer but only focused on him being uncooperative, then even if he had clearly finished and apologized they might need to assume that it could happen again in a situation that's more dangerous for him or other passengers, like during landing. And really, should they just take his word that it won't happen again, especially if they don't know anything about his religious practices?

If this is something that he has no control over (or thinks he has no control over, whatever may be your perspective) then what's to stop him the next time except forcing him back into his seat, which is unacceptable, or forcing him off the plane?

As a matter of personal taste, I despise religious jabberings in public places, so I would have been pleased to see this guy get disappeared. Shut up and keep it to yourself - The Supreme Being is powerful enough to read your thoughts, vocalization isn't necessary.

Exception: If on a plane that is experiencing an uncontrolled, unplanned descent, knock yourself out.

@humphrmi: Oh, I agree with that, but I wonder how much he was really inconviencing the flight if people were still boarding (ie, they weren't waiting for HIM to sit down to take off) and how long he actually took. IMO flight attendants seem to kick people off flights these days more for the power than anything else.

My guess is that he was saying the Amidah, needed to stand for 10 minutes and figured that since they were still boarding, it would be okay.

@oakie: Nominate for reporting button Mods. Since when do these kinds of posts make it onto Consumerist?

@unklegwar: Bah! That's what I get for rushing. What I was getting at was that he'll claim they were infringing on his religious freedom, blah blah. Nothing against him as a jew.

Oh well, I'm gonna catch crap, have a ball.

Makes sense to me. Kudos to the airline.

I just wish they had been Pentacostal and Samuel L. were on the plane at the time.

"And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up SERPENTS; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

Mark 16:17-18

At some point, people are going to have to realize that freedom of Religion also means freedom FROM religion and that not everyone is interested in tolerating your dogma. Does the right of one overzealous religious person override that of everyone else around you? Not last I checked.

With my rights, I personally choose to be free of religion. I don't practice or observe any of it, and as a result I don't expect anyone to force their beliefs on me. This guy was attempting to make some sort of a statement by doing what he did and I'm glad to see him removed.

Maybe it'll discourage the next person who claims his religion forces him to do something disruptive in a public place that affects a large amount of people. I doubt it, because most people don't seem to be rational when it comes to matters of religion, but I have hopes that it'll at least do something.

@oakie: Okay, I try to be polite, I try to get along with everyone, and oh how I try to not flip out at idiots. However, you're a bigoted poor excuse for a human being.

What Jews would WILLINGLY SOCIALIZE WITH YOU? You are such an irritating, angry little man with so many prejudices that not a one of my people would ever so much as want to breathe the same air as you.