Once again frum travelers landing in Tel Aviv on Shabbos found themselves in a difficult place as El Al flight 320 from Paris to Tel Aviv landed on erev Shabbos at 4:18PM. Candle lighting in Bnei Brak was 4:19PM.
Some of the passengers on board spoke with Kol Berama Radio host Noam Zeigman on Sunday, 25 Kislev, explaining what took place. The report the flight left Paris two hours late due to inclement weather. Some of the frum passengers spoke with airline officials during the waiting period, concerned as they saw Shabbos nearing while they had yet to take off. They explain airline representatives told them that if the flight cannot land by 3:15PM, it will not leave Paris.
Hearing these words, they were comfortable with the situation and when the flight took off, they were confident they would have an hour from landing to get to their destination. However, this was not the case as reported above. Making things worse, the ‘Shabbos protocol’ was not implemented, permitting the religious Jews to move ahead of the lines to reach their destinations.
Kol Berama spoke with El Al and its version of events is somewhat different. The airline insists no one promised to land by 3:15PM, but passengers were promised to land before Shabbos and this is what occurred. The airline apologized for not implementing the ‘Shabbos protocol’ which they admit should have been implemented.
Musicians Ohad Moskowitz and Gershon Freishtat were among the passengers and they were among the lucky ones, having a place to go in Kfar Chabad. They reportedly took a cab for about five minutes and then walks for over 40 minutes until reaching Kfar Chabad, where they spent Shabbos.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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9 Responses
While we all feel bad for the stranded passengers, two things should still be borne in mind:
1. Flying on Erev Shabbos, especially such a short one, in addition to the flight being international, always has an inherent possibility of being delayed and arriving extremely close to Shabbos.
2. Shabbos protocol is very nice, but are the rest of the passengers goyim, whom the frum ones would certainly delay, thus making their chilul Shabbos definite?
If you are so observant, unless it’s a true sha’as hadchak, or a bona fide emergency, please remember the words of the poskim about NOT traveling on erev Shabbos even between two nearby towns, let alone flying from a different country.
If these ehrlech yidden are so worried about arriving prior to shkiah, they will fly on Wednesday or Thursday. El Al makes a reasonable effort to accommodate those passengers who might be shomer Shabbos, but it is a highly regulated, profit making (at least in theory)commercial enterprise and not among those mosdos committed to strict compliance with alacha. Its getting tiring of hearing these fools whine about chilul Shabbos when they have no one else but themselves to blame.
How many times do we have to hear these stories of frum hidden who book flights that land so close to Shabbos. If flying from France to Israel people should not book any flight if possible that leaves less than ten hours before candle lighting Eretz Yisroel time which is about double the time it takes to get there & definitely not less than eight hours before Shabbos under any circumstance. The only heter to take a flight that lands so close to Shabbos would only be for a pikuach nefesh situation where it would even be muttar to fly on Shabbos. An example of such a situation would be that if someone was being held hostage & unless someone bought money for ransom or had to sign a paper would be killed sometime on Shabbos I would think it would be muttar to even fly on Shabbos for such of situation although I think a major posek should be asked that shaila. But in general you don’t have to ask a shaila for safekeeping pikuach nefesh as you just are allowed to do anything to save a life.
And is it mutar for religious Jews to go ahead of other Jews via the “Shabbos protocol,” thus causing the other Jews to be even later and causing them to travel on Shabbos?
“frum passengers”? Not really!
A frum passenger wouldn’t have been flying Friday afternoon with room not even for a two hour delay which happens quite normally.
“frum passengers”? Not really. Good exciting headline for blaming El Al, but next time point your headline in the right direction!
DONT TRAVEL ON A FRIDAY!!!! Easiest solution.
I agree entirely with the 2 above! Where is their sense?
A real yerei Shomayim does not travel so close to Shabbos.
Why blame El AL you dont travel so close to Shabbos overseas
I grew up not going to Manhattan shopping even in the longer days on Friday
#First of all lets boycott EL AL all friday flights
#second we must guard our selves and not fly on Friday
Enough don’t be stupid and fly on Friday