Both feuding Satmar Rebbes, R' Aron Teitelbaum and his nemesis R' Zalman Leib refuse to travel on El Al; when they travel to the Zionist State, they travel Lufthansa.
Lufthansa is owned by Germans, whose relatives brutally murdered 3/4 of the Jewish people. It has since been demonstrated and proven that the Deutsche "Luft Hansa" relied on the use of forced labor on the site of Tempelhof airport. Read the book "Hitler's Willing Executioners" by Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were willing executioners.
The Satmar Rebbes don't care about German's bloody history and would rather fly with an airline owned by the relatives of their grandparent's murderers than fly with an airline owned by Jews. El Al represents Zionism and it was the Zionists who saved the life of R' Yoel Teitelbaum.
Now, I admit that I sometimes fly United or Delta to and back to Israel, but I don't do it on principle, I do it because of timing and go for who has a better price, my financial resources are limited.
But leaders of hundreds of thousands should travel the Jewish airline, especially since they owe Israel "hakoras hatoiv."
A group of about 100 Orthodox Jews from New York City says it was barred from boarding a connecting flight in Germany last week — because a few didn't wear masks on the previous leg, according to reports.