A strange detail has surfaced about United Airlines pilot Ibrahim Mossallam, the captain who publicly praised the October 7 Hamas attack and — according to recent reporting — has been back flying passengers for close to three years.
According to reporter Libby Blanca Alon, two United pilots who were deadheading (travelling as passengers to a work assignment) on a flight operated by Mossallam gave up their first-class seats and spent the entire flight in the cockpit. The reason, per sources familiar with the incident: they did not trust the pilot at the controls and wanted to monitor him directly for the duration of the trip. The first-class travel perk they gave up itself dates back to a pandemic-era concession won by the United pilots' union.
The backstory is contentious. Mossallam's social media posts came to light in November 2023, when he described the October 7 attack as "resistance by brave people." United confirmed on 20 November 2023 that it had removed him from service with pay pending an investigation, but by that December the airline declined to say whether he had returned to flying. A June 2025 court filing by flight attendant Ruben Sanchez alleges Mossallam returned to the line after roughly a month. More recent updates say he continues to fly Boeing 757s and 767s for United.
The sharpest claim in the new reporting concerns the airline and its union. Sources say United wanted to terminate Mossallam's employment, but the Air Line Pilots Association's United unit blocked the firing — a move the report's author argues is hard to square with the union's safety-first messaging. The critics' argument runs: a pilot who praises an attack on civilians, and whose own colleagues reportedly feel the need to babysit him at the controls, raises questions that go beyond politics and into trust and security.
What does this mean for people booking United flights? On paper, nothing has changed — Mossallam holds his certification, the airline's stated vetting process has returned him to service, and cockpit crews already include safeguards like locked doors and two-person access rules. The story matters because it lifts the curtain on how some crews themselves feel about a colleague: when fellow pilots choose to forfeit their seats and ride jumpseat for an entire flight just to watch one of their own, that says something the official statements don't. Travellers who read it will reasonably wonder who is flying their plane, how airlines handle pilots' public statements after a hiring, and where the line sits between union job protections and passenger confidence. United has not, in this reporting, issued a fresh public explanation for the current arrangement, so the practical takeaway for now is awareness rather than a booking decision — though pressure on both the airline and the union to explain themselves looks likely to grow.
