A group of Israeli passengers on a flight from Athens to Tel Aviv has forced the cabin crew to remove two Arabs on board before takeoff accusing them of being ‘terrorists’.

The incident took place on Flight 928 of Aegean Airlines, which was stuck for almost two hours at Athens airport on Monday night as the passengers refused to allow the plane to take off by standing in the aisles.

A spokesperson for Aegean said a small group of passengers had ‘very vocally’ asked for two other passengers – who were Arab citizens of Israel – to be checked for security issues.

According to press reports, the Greek crew did not initially understand the demands of the Israeli passengers and continued with preparations for the flight.

But with the flight unable to take off, the captain called the airport police ‘’to check again the two Israeli passengers documents and identities’’.

Although the documents of the two were found to be in order, a much larger group of passengers started protesting against their presence.

The two men finally agreed to disembark in exchange for a free hotel and flight the following day.

The flight left with a two hour-delay.

‘We again thank the two Israeli passengers who agreed to disembark for their understanding and collaboration and we apologize for the whole episode, which was indeed extremely unfortunate,’ the Aegean Airlines spokesman said.

(Source: EJP)