Recently a number of complaints have raised concerns of kashrus problems regarding airplane meals. The problem has arisen in the case of code-sharing flights in which the passenger reserves a flight on El Al but the flight is actually executed by a foreign airline. Traditional passengers who do not order glatt meals just rely on the regular kashrus provided by El Al, but since in practice the passenger does not fly on an El Al plane, the meal he is served is not kosher at all.
Atty. Mordechai Tzivin, who is active in the Movement for Fairness in Government, demanded that this information be brought to passengers’ attention by including a message on tickets, including electronic tickets. “This is a kashrus stumbling-block for traditional passengers through lack of information,” Tzivin claims.
“Innocent passengers, knowing that meals served on El Al flights are kosher, assume the meals on a flight by a foreign company are kosher and sometimes they are led to stumble by unintentionally consuming real neveilos and treifos,” he wrote in a letter to El Al.
In response El Al denied that passengers are deprived of information. “Every passenger who orders a plane ticket from an authorized travel agent receives information prior to the planned flight. This also applies to El Al flights when the flight is not carried out on an El Al plane, but on a plane belonging to a foreign airline with which El Al has a code sharing agreement.
“At the time of reservation a note appears on the travel agent’s screen indicating that the flight will be executed on a plane not belonging to El Al. In such a case the agent has the responsibility to order kosher food in accordance with the passenger’s wishes. This has been the procedure for the past eight years. Thus there is no stumbling block, choliloh, of non-kosher food. The same applies regarding El Al connecting flights executed on planes belonging to foreign airlines. Travel agents are well aware of the need to order kosher food.”
Atty. Tzivin maintains that many travel agents do not inform passengers, either due to a lack of time or to laxity regarding the matter of kashrus.
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One Response
As we have been witness to so often in recent times, being kosher is not something that a Jew can “fly on automatic pilot”. Stumbling blocks are not just with El Al, they are everywhere!