Delta Air Lines apologized Thursday for a now-deleted post on its X account that appeared to sympathize with a social media user who complained about flight attendants wearing Palestinian flag pins on their uniforms.
“I hear you as I’d be terrified as well, personally,” the airline wrote, according to screenshots on social media of the deleted response. “Our employees reflect our culture and we do not take it lightly when our policy is not being followed.”
A Delta spokesperson said in a statement to The Washington Post on Thursday that the airline’s social media post “was not in line with our values and our mission.” The spokesperson said the team member who wrote the post “has been counseled and no longer supports Delta’s social channels,” but did not specify whether the team member still worked for Delta.
The flight attendants, who were photographed on separate flights, are still working for the airline and have received support from the company, Delta said in a statement. Although it previously permitted pins representing countries outside the United States to be worn on uniforms, Delta said that starting Monday, only U.S. flag pins will be allowed — a move the airline said it made in response to this week’s incident.
Palestinian activists condemned Delta’s response, and several social media users said they planned to boycott the airline.
Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the national deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, told The Post that he initially hoped Delta’s tweet had not been written by someone who worked at the airline. He said the post could make people think the Palestinian flag is “an icon of a hate group.”
“What happened with Delta is just the latest example of anti-Palestinian racism,” Mitchell said, adding that CAIR welcomed Delta’s apology. “And my hope is that this incident will begin to slowly, slowly move the needle in a different direction.”
CAIR said in April that it had received more than 8,000 civil rights complaints in 2023, the highest in its 30-year history. Palestinian Americans have faced fear and violence amid the war in Gaza, The Post reported, with their support for civilians in the Gaza Strip misconstrued as support for Hamas, the militant group that has governed Gaza since 2006.
Hamas’s flag has Islamic text on a green background, while the Palestinian flag is a black, white and green tricolor with a red triangle on the left.
Federal officials said last year that they had identified a spike in threats against Arab, Jewish and Muslim communities after the war began.
Israel launched a military assault in Gaza after Hamas militants crossed the border into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostage. More than 38,000 Palestinians have died in the enclave in the past nine months.
Israel’s war in Gaza and the rising death toll have triggered protests across the United States, including in corporate America. In April, Google fired 28 employees for publicly protesting a contract Google had with the Israeli government.
