Dozens of French passengers were taken off a Vueling flight preparing to leave from Valencia to Paris on Wednesday, due to what Spanish police and the airline described as ‘disruptive conduct’.
According to Vueling, the incident led to the removal of 44 minors and eight adults from flight V8166. In a statement (see below), the airline denied allegations that the passengers’ removal had anything to do with their religious background.
Some Israeli media outlets, however, suggested that the passengers were Jewish and implied that the incident had a religious motive. This interpretation was echoed online by an Israeli government minister.
According to reports, the group was returning home from a two-week summer camp in Spain. The holiday camp organisers are to file a legal complaint against Vueling, according to the AFP news agency.
‘We are going to file a complaint for physical and psychological violence, as well as discrimination on the basis of religion,’ Club Kineret’s lawyer Julie Jacob said, adding that those involved were mostly under 15 years old.
Spain’s Guardia Civil police confirmed that the group – both minors and adults – held French nationality. A spokesperson for the Guardia Civil stated that the officers involved had no knowledge of the passengers’ religious identity.
A Vueling representative said that the removal occurred after some minors repeatedly interfered with emergency equipment on board and disrupted the safety briefing given by the crew.
‘A group of passengers engaged in highly disruptive behaviour and adopted a very confrontational attitude, putting at risk the safe conduct of the flight,’ the airline said in a statement (see below). ‘We categorically deny any suggestion that our crew’s behaviour was related to the religion of the passengers involved.’
The Guardia Civil spokesperson noted that the decision to remove the minors was made by the aircraft’s captain at Valencia’s Manises Airport, following repeated defiance of crew instructions. The flight was scheduled to depart to Paris-Orly airport.
On Thursday, the Federation for Jewish Communities of Spain voiced its concerns about the situation, calling on Vueling to supply documentation clarifying what had occurred.
‘The various accounts circulating on social media and in the media to which we have had access do not clarify the cause of the incident,’ the group said.
‘We are particularly interested in clarifying whether there were any possible religiously discriminatory motives toward the minors,’ the organisation added.
Once the group had been ordered off the plane and back into the terminal at Valencia airport, the group’s behaviour ‘continued to be aggressive’, Vueling said. Some ‘individuals displayed a violent attitude’, leading to the arrest of one person.
The Guardia Civil corroborated Vueling’s statement, saying the arrested person ‘refused to get off the plane and obey the officers’ but was later released.
Some parents of the group have claimed that the teenagers were forced off the plane after one of them had sung a song in Hebrew.
According to the Guardia Civil, 23 of the minors and two adults later boarded a flight with a different airline, while the rest of the group stayed overnight at a hotel.
Efforts were underway to arrange their departure from Valencia on Thursday.
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Vueling statement regarding the passengers disembarked for disruptive behaviour on flight VY8166 pic.twitter.com/WQ2255Ujqy
— Vueling Airlines (@vueling) July 24, 2025
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