The Jewish passenger described the Arabs as “strange looking,” bearded-men who were reading the Koran as they boarded. He said that although the flight is operated on a code-share basis, there was no El Al representative present and it took an El Al agent two hours to arrive.
He told the disgruntled passengers El Al could not interfere in Sabena’s security arrangements, despite the code-share. Eventually, El Al put up all the passengers who refused to board and brought them to Ben-Gurion Airport on its own flight the next morning.