(RNS) — Reports that Air France served non-kosher meals to an Orthodox Jewish family of eight who had requested kosher food ahead of the flight is causing alarm in religious Jewish circles.
Divora Marinelli, her husband, mother and five children visited Mauritius on a “roots” trip in February and last week were on a 12-hour flight from Mauritius to Paris when the incident occurred. Like others who request special in-flight meals, observant Jews preorder kosher meals, especially for long-distance flights. To be considered kosher, the meals must be prepared in a strictly kosher kitchen with strictly kosher ingredients and be specially packaged and labeled “KSML” or “kosher.”
Despite having preordered kosher meals months ahead, according to Marinelli, when the Chicago family checked in for their flight, they were told the kosher food they had ordered was not available. In the absence of kosher food, the family informed airline representatives during check-in, they could eat only raw fruits and vegetables, and anything else would be non-kosher, Marinelli told RNS in an interview.
Once in the air, however, a flight attendant handed them meals with the letters “KSML,” handwritten on the box.
The allegedly mislabeled meal on an Air France flight. (Photo by Divora Marinelli)
Marinelli said by the time she realized the meals could not be kosher, based on the fact that the food was cooked and how it was packaged, some of her children, whose ages range from 3 to 16, had already started eating.
“I was not sitting next to all of them, and not all of the meals were handed out at the same time,” she said. “When I saw what was going on, I notified the kids, but it was too late. One of my sons was suspicious and asked the flight attendant whether the meal was kosher and was assured that it was.”
When Marinelli notified the head flight attendant, she said, “He took full responsibility.”
“It took him three hours to write up the report. He took pictures of the report,” she added.
And when Marinelli told him she believed a flight attendant had handwritten KSML on the non-kosher meals, she said, “He didn’t dispute this.”
By the time the family landed in Paris, “Air France had sent an email apologizing for not having kosher meals” and offered each family member a 30 euro voucher for their inconvenience.
Marinelli soon reached out to DansDeals, a miles and points blog and popular resource for Orthodox Jewish travelers, to share her experience. After DansDeals posted about the incident on Monday (Feb. 24), Air France responded on X saying it was “aware of this experience of customers regarding the non-compliance of their kosher meal on a flight from Mauritius to Paris CDG.” The airline attributed the lack of kosher food to its caterer having a “supply shortage.”
Divora Marinelli, right, and her family visit the Saint Martin Jewish Cemetery on Mauritius during a recent trip. (Photo courtesy Divora Marinelli)
“Customers were informed when they arrived at the airport that their special meals would be unavailable and that vegetarian product trays would be provided as a replacement,” the airline said on X on Tuesday (Feb. 25). “Once on board, these trays were served to them, marked by the local caterer KSML, purely so that they could be identified by the crew to facilitate service. Air France regrets this confusing identification and points out that the crew never intended to mislead customers about the quality of the tray offered and that customers were well aware of the vegetarian meal served.”
Marinelli disputes the airline’s reasoning, as cooked vegetarian food is not kosher if it is prepared in a non-kosher kitchen, something caterers and flight attendants should know. As such, it should never have been labeled that way, she said.
“That is an outright lie,” Marinelli said. “When we heard there were no kosher meals, they asked what we can eat. We told them we cannot eat anything cooked. The only thing we can eat is raw fruits and vegetables. We were eight people. Everyone will verify this.”
If the caterer indeed wrote “kosher” on the meals, “it could only have been because the airline told them to write it,” Marinelli said. “Plus, flight attendants are very aware of what kosher meals look like. It was obvious these meals weren’t kosher.”
Air France did not respond to a request for comment.
The reaction in the Orthodox community to the incident has been swift, with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement calling it “a shocking breach of trust.”
Following the outcry generated by the DansDeals post — which received 200,000 views, 2,000 likes and almost 400 reposts on X — Air France’s service support desk apologized to the Marinellis and asked them to contact the airline “for additional assistance,” according to the blog.
This is not the first time an airline has been found to mislead Jewish travelers about kosher food, the DansDeals post said. Back in 2018, Wow Air, an Icelandic budget airline, falsely claimed its in-flight meals were kosher, despite lacking kosher certification.
“For kosher travelers, this serves as a stark reminder to always check that airline meals are factory-sealed with proper kosher certification,” the DansDeals post read.
Mark Feldman, director of the Diesenhaus travel agency in Jerusalem, said it is “not uncommon” for an airline to lack the kosher meals ordered by its passengers.
“It does occur, but usually the airline apologizes to the clients,” he said.
If the allegation that a flight attendant passed off a non-kosher meal as kosher is true, “it borders on a serious breach of conduct,” Feldman said. Air France’s small vouchers to the family “don’t address the issue.”
In the comments section following the DansDeals blog post, some Orthodox Jews wondered whether the incident was sparked by antisemitism, given recent attacks against Jews in France.
“KSML meals are wrapped in plastic and foil, with the strict instructions that only the passenger may unwrap it,” one respondent wrote. “Unless the attendant had been on the job for only 20 minutes, this was deliberate. There is absolutely no excuse for this, starting with the airline. The passenger ordered months in advance.”
Others said it was likely an honest mistake by the flight attendant.
“Nothing about this story sounds like antisemitism,” another reader wrote. “If anything, it sounds like incompetency and unprofessional behavior. We need to be serious about what we call antisemitism, which is rampant. There’s no need to project antisemitic intent on idiotic behavior.”
Marinelli told RNS, “Saying something is antisemitic is a big statement, and I never said that myself.
“I didn’t feel it from the flight crew’s behavior,” she said. “But from their lack of taking accountability, the airline really appears to have no concern for the kosher Jewish consumer.”
