Passengers on the nightmare El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv on Thursday night have accused the airline of lying and of a “kidnap” after a five-hour delay in taking off meant that the plane could not reach Israel before Shabbat began.
Despite El Al’s initial statement alleging that haredi fliers had been violent, numerous passengers stated subsequently that there had been no violence at all, with many blaming the late arrival of the cabin crew to the airport for the severe delay and failure to reach Israel on time.
Flight LY002 was scheduled to leave New York’s JFK Airport at 6:30 p.m. local time Thursday and arrive in Israel on Friday afternoon. But due to snow storms and the failure of the El Al cabin staff to arrive on time at the airport, the flight ended up leaving more than five hours later.
Shortly before the plane took off, religious passengers began to request stridently to disembark since they realized that the flight would continue into the Sabbath on Friday evening, a violation of Jewish religious law.
El Al claimed that “a group of haredim” requested to get off the plane and “exercised heavy and violent pressure against the cabin crew” in seeking to disembark, and alleged that this caused further delays in taking off.
