While the saga continues from 9 days ago, Haredi passengers are upset once again with El Al as this weeks Thursday night flight that was due to land at 13:15 on Friday afternoon landed but without some of the luggage. Some Haredi passengers had to go home, or to wherever they are staying, and experience Shabbos without their Shabbos clothes and shtreimels.
It seems there was a technical fault that caused a delay with one of the machines loading luggage on to the airplane, and instead of delaying takeoff, they decided to just takeoff without that portion of the luggage and send it later on another flight.
During the week this would not be a problem at all - either they would slightly delay the flight, get the issue resolved, and then off to Israel, or they would send the luggage on the next flight. On the Thursday night flight they run into Shabbos problems, so they cannot easily delay the flight even for a tiny bit, risking landing on Shabbos.
source: Kol Hazman
It seems to me that the solution is to not take these Thursday night flights that risk chilul Shabbos with any slight delay. To avoid chilul shabbos with these flights, everything has to work like a Swiss clock, and how often does that happen? Can anyone really expect El Al, or any airline, to always have perfect weather, no technical problems, no backups on the runway or whatever else might cause a delay? Many rabbonim have repeatedly called similarly upon the public to not fly on these flights scheduled to land right before Shabbos.
I get that people want or need to maximize their trips, taking advantage of the entire possible weekday schedule for their fundraising or business or leisure and want to come back at the last possible moment - but that treats Shabbos so casually and disrespectfully compared to the importance they give to their other involvements.
The solution to all these problems is to NOT take these last minute flights. Take Shabbos into consideration and take a flight scheduled to leave earlier that day or the day before, or after Shabbos.
Nothing I said is meant to absolve El Al of the need to treat all their passengers, including the religious and Haredi passengers, with proper respect and appropriate service and to do everything in their power to run the flights on time and without difficulties. The reality, unfortunately, is that flights are often delayed a bit for many reasons out of the control of the operators.
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------
