http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082064.html British airline BMI has deleted Israel from electronic maps that appear on its flights in order to avoid angering Muslim passengers, Army Radio reported on Thursday.
Additional efforts on to appeal to Muslim customers include showing the distance and relation of the plane to Mecca, the direction to which Muslims face when they pray.
In the electronic maps appearing on a BMI flight from London to Tel Aviv, for example, Israel and its cities are not marked, with the exception of Haifa, which is spelled 'Khefa,' the city's Arab name dating to before the War of Independence.
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BMI operates flights from England to many popular Muslim destinations, including Syria, Lebanon and Iran, but has also recently launched an agreement with the Tourism Ministry to add Israel to its roster.
BMI said in response that two planes en route to Tel Aviv were originally destined to arrive in Arab countries, so the map was tailored to those passengers and showed Muslim holy sites.
The company issued a statement saying that a "logistic failure" caused the map to appear on the Tel Aviv-bound flight and said it will be removed from planes flying to Israel. The statement added that BMI was making every effort not to hurt passengers' feelings by adopting a nonpolitical position, the statement added
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