Travel Agents Resentful About Israel’s Handling of Flights

By COLlive reporter

Shmulik Kravitsky, CEO of the Sky 2000 Travel agency in Crown Heights, was infected with coronavirus a week and a half after Purim. He says his life hung in the balance until his miraculous recovery.

Kravitsky says he was a heavy smoker up until 4 years ago. “The doctor told me that if I would still be smoking today my lungs would have immediately collapsed when I became ill with Coronavirus,” he says.

Now he is dealing with a different threat also presented by the pandemic: lack of ticket sales.

Kravitsky is accusing the state of Israel for abandoning him and other travel agents “who have brought tens of billions to the country.”

In an interview with the Hebrew news website Kikar.net, Kravitsky said: “We have been working for years for the interests of the state of Israel to bring tourism – both large Christian communities and frum Jewish communities.”

“We are now sitting here for a half a year and can’t provide for our families,” he says. “All we are asking them is to allow us to sell tickets. The last ticket I and my friends sold was in February.”

Kravitsky warns that “it will be a blow to the country after coronavirus when it will be very difficult to convince people to return to Israel – this will waste of decades of work (of encouraging tourism to Israel.”

“I will stress,” Kravitsky explains, “so that they don’t think that my friends and I are imagining things, I will explain how we personally helped inject money into the country. We are dealing with huge communities – and we got them used to flying to and touring Israel. We are bringing tens of billions into the country. Don’t forget all the ultra-Orthodox communities we bring to Israel.”

“Additionally,” Kravitsky adds, “the country will have a big blow after corona is over. It will be very difficult to convince people to return to Israel – and that’s going to put years of work to waste.”

Feivish Michaelovitz, a New York travel agent in the Chassidic community (in Monsey in particular), said: “There are dozens of devotees who go to their rabbi’s country for holidays and now do not know what to do, especially those who want to come and thank the rabbi for being saved from Corona.”

Both travel agents are asking the state of Israel:

“Allow us to bring in those who were already sick with Corona. There is no problem if they enter Israel, and they have all the proof that they need, so why not bring them in? It’s not that they are forging a letter from a doctor. It’s a hospital certificate, so what is the reason for not letting them in?”

“Or go with the system they used in Kiev – they opened a laboratory at the airport. Do a test, pay a sum of money, and wait until there is an answer within six hours. Ukraine can create such solutions and Israel cannot?” they ask.