Israel is back on the map as Air France bows to pressure over in-flight screen

The controversy began last week, when a passenger on an Air France jet sent a photo to the Facebook page of the pro-Israel group Stand With Us showing how the in-flight map omits Israel.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Updated: AUGUST 13, 2015 02:04
Air France puts Israel back on the map
The company responsible for providing passengers with electronic maps on Air France flights announced Wednesday that it had added Israel to its computerized flight path screens, after sparking outrage last week by omitting it.
The controversy began last week when a passenger on an Air France flight sent a photo to the Facebook page of the pro-Israel group Stand With Us showing an in-flight map that did not name Israel.
In the photo of the map, there were only indicators of where the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are, with no indication at all of the State of Israel.
After the original photo was posted, other members of the Facebook page started posting their own photos of Air France in-flight maps without Israel.
In a letter to Air France chairman and CEO Frédéric Gagey, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, said that “French members of our center have sent us reportedly captured shots from the English and French language of an Air France flight-path, taken last week between New York and Paris, and the locations ‘Israel’ and ‘Tel Aviv’ are glaringly absent.”
Panasonic France, the company that manufactures the maps, responded to the Wiesenthal Center by saying that it had corrected its original error.
“We have been able to confirm that the changes we made to our service were deployed on the Air France aircraft on or about August 4,” the company said.