Row over El Al’s early landing for Shabbat

AN ACRIMONIOUS, on-board —and online — debate broke out when an El Al flight from New York made an unscheduled landing in Athens on Friday afternoon to avoid desecrating Shabbat.

Some accused Israel’s national carrier of mismanagement by sanctioning the flight in the full knowledge that it would not reach Tel Aviv before the Sabbath began.

Others claimed some passengers on board were violent towards the El Al crew.

The only fact not disputed was that the Boeing 747-458 took off with 400 passengers five-and-a-half hours after its scheduled time on Thursday — because of the snow that began falling that afternoon in New York.

What is less clear is how much other factors contributed to the delay, including the lateness of some El Al crew in arriving at John F Kennedy Airport, a lengthy de-icing process for the plane, and congestion on the runway due to the weather.

According to El Al, when Flight LY002 took off just before midnight on Thursday, it could still reach Ben Gurion with an hour or so to spare before Shabbat.

That claim now looks rather dubious in the light of the mid-flight decision to land in Athens and allow some 150 religious passengers to disembark before Shabbat began.

El Al claimed its crew members were attacked during the flight. This was backed up by some passengers’ accounts.

“I heard shouting — ‘liars, frauds’ — and hands risen and hitting, and flight attendants bursting into tears,” one passenger, Shimon Sheves, wrote on Facebook.

“I heard shouting and saw a flight attendant crying after hands were raised on her,” said another, Roni Meital.

According to these accounts, the violent passengers were Strictly Orthodox men enraged at the thought of having to desecrate Shabbat.

But other passengers had different versions. Ohad Orr, who described himself as secular, disputed the stories of violence and said they “ignored the shambolic actions of the El Al crew on the ground and back in Israel, which was the only cause of the unexplained chaos on the flight.”

Other passengers complained of not being informed about the situation and of being told to remain in their seats for a prolonged period without food or water.

Religious journalist Yehuda Schlesinger, also on the flight, wrote: “I saw Charedim who were being lied to and misinformed. They remained quiet.”

He claimed that the shouting and swearing had been from secular passengers angry at having to land in Athens and continue later that night on board other airlines’ flights booked for them by El Al. The religious passengers remained in Athens for Shabbat and flew home on Saturday night.

El Al said: “we treat the behaviour of some of the passengers towards crew members on the El Al flight from New York very seriously and we hope that the police will investigate the matter thoroughly.”

But the company itself is understood not to have made a complaint to the police.