El Al Mulls ‘Kosher Flights’

By Globes

Tel Aviv – Will El Al shortly start operating glatt kosher flights? Haredi travel wholesalers are in talks with El Al to buy flights from Israel to New York reserved exclusively for the haredi community. If they take place, the flights will operate over the Passover and other holiday periods, and conditions on board will be adapted to suit the community’s modesty requirements.

For several years, El Al has been selling designated flights to Kiev to the haredi public. On these flights, on which all seats are sold in advance by haredi travel wholesalers, there is total seggregation of the sexes, no films are screened, the food served is kosher to an extremely strict standard, and there are no women among the flight attendants.

El Al CEO Haim Romano told “Globes” today that if the haredi wholesalers undertake to buy all the seats on the flights, El Al will respond positively to the request.

“Just as in the past we sold a flight to Japan to the Bank Leumi workers’ committee and met their request for special service on the flight, so we will act in this case. As far as we are concerned, there is no problem in meeting the conditions set by the sector as long as they are reasonable,” Romano said.

“Nor do we have any problem in the wholesalers determining seating arrangements on the aircraft to suit the requirements of modesty, but I must emphasize that if there is even a single non-religious person on the flight who demands regular service, El Al will meet that demand, and the flight will become a regular flight in all respects,” he continued.

“We sell the flight at full price, so I presume that the ticket prices will also be normal, unless someone in that community intends selling them at reduced prices and absorbing the difference at his own expense.”