Lufthansa is once again in the spotlight due to an incident in 2022. 128 passengers on a flight from New York to Frankfurt were denied onward flight to Budapest. The reason: Some of them are said to have violated the mask requirement in force at the time. The incident might have remained a side note had the US Department of Transportation not determined that all of the passengers affected were of Jewish faith and that they had been discriminated against. The consequence: A record fine of four million US dollars was imposed on Lufthansa. This is the highest fine ever imposed by the US Department of Transportation for a civil rights violation. Background to the incident In May 2022, an incident occurred on a Lufthansa flight from New York to Frankfurt that has now had far-reaching consequences for the German airline. A group of passengers who wanted to travel on to Budapest were excluded from their connecting flight. The reason given by Lufthansa: Some passengers had not complied with the FFP2 mask requirement that was in force in Germany and many other countries at the time. What makes the case explosive, however, is the fact that the passengers excluded by Lufthansa were all of the Jewish faith. The group consisted of Orthodox Jews, some of whom were clearly recognizable by their traditional clothing - such as hats and sidelocks. According to the US Department of Transportation, however, the group did not fully know each other, and there was no uniform violation of the mask requirement by all travelers. Nevertheless, Lufthansa decided to deny all 128 passengers onward flight to Budapest. Criticism and investigation The decision