More than 100 Jewish passengers who were barred from flight in 'racial profiling' incident get $21,000 each from Germany's Lufthansa airline

• Lufthansa has reached a settlement with more than 100 Orthodox Jewish men who were barred from a flight.
• Each passenger will receive "$21,000 and change" from the German airline, Hamodia reported.

More than 100 Orthodox Jewish passengers who were barred from a Lufthansa flight in May 0f this year have reached a settlement with the airline for approximately $21,000 each, the Jewish-interest newspaper Hamodia was first to report.

A passenger told Hamodia that each passenger would receive "$21,000 and change" from Lufthansa. He described the settlement as "fair" and said that he had already received a check for $17,400 after attorney fees, Hamodia reported.

The passengers were represented by the American Center for Law & Justice — a conservative law firm and political advocacy group which focuses on religious freedom.

In an email to Insider, Lufthansa confirmed that a settlement had been reached with "the vast majority of passengers." The airline declined to comment further.

The incident on May 4 involved a large group of Orthodox Jewish men who were barred from taking a connecting flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Budapest, Hungary, for an annual religious pilgrimage to the grave of a revered rabbi.

A handful of the passengers did not wear masks, prompting the airline to deny boarding to more than 100 visibly Jewish passengers.

Speaking to Insider shortly after the incident, a passenger described it as racial profiling to "the highest degree I've ever witnessed in my life." Another passenger, Yitzy Schmidt, told Insider: "I was guilty by association, and that association is being an Orthodox Jew."

Lufthansa initially defended the decision, citing mask-wearing regulations in Germany, but videos later emerged of a Lufthansa employee saying it was "Jewish people who were the mess." The airline then apologized.

In a statement following the release of the videos, the airline said it "regrets the circumstances surrounding the decision to exclude the affected passengers from the flight, for which Lufthansa sincerely apologizes."

Lufthansa's CEO Carsten Spohr later spoke to Berlin's chief rabbi to express his remorse over the incident. According to the Orthodox Jewish news service COL Live, Spohr told Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal that "antisemitism has no place at Lufthansa."

The German airline moved to appoint an antisemitism officer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported in August. Lufthansa also adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism and introduced a new staff training on antisemitism, per the JTA.