Religious Travelers - Ever land on Shabbat?

Now that Shabbat starts before 5pm, with a few hour delay one can easily land after Shabbat started. Has this ever happened to you?

Thats why I usually wont fly on a Fri

The 1 time I made an exception was coming back from HNL where I left Thurs night via IAH. And literally had to run my ___ off to make the 35 min connection as we were delayed a few mins leaving HNL. The next flight would have gotten me in before Shabbos but I never would have made it to where I was planning to stay

It really is too dangerous as in the Winter WX somewhere else can cause the plane you are suppose to fly on to be delayed getting in

Several years ago this December, my wife went to PHL to be with her mother z"l for a surgery. She booked a 10am flight PHL-LAX, due in at about 12:45pm. The flight was delayed by sleet in PHL, when one of the de-icing stations malfunctioned and they needed to use trucks with hoses instead. She ended up being 4:20 late on a 4:45 flight, and landing about 20 minutes after shabbat.

As she put it later, "if the KBH wants to talk to me about why I paid for my taxi home from LAX on shabbat, I'll be glad to ask the KBH why my mother has brain cancer. If I get a good answer to that, then we can get to the minor questions, like why it had to sleet in PHL, and why there were headwinds slowing down my flight. If after all that I need to do teshuva for coming home for shabbat instead of staying at LAX without kiddush, motzi or food, I'll do teshuva."

And, I guess that response is what makes us Conservative, not Orthodox (even though we don't use electricity, only bring hekshered food into our house, etc.).

I never take even short flights on a Friday. The latest i will fly is on a Thursday night.
I have just heard so many stories of people albeit not having to be mechalel shabbos , but spending shabbos at the airport or airport hotel which to me is quite depressing

By the way Hashem has his reasons for everything only when we get to Heaven will we understand the bigger picture

This happened to me once in my entire career. I recall it was in early spring before we switched to summertime. Getting back to London on a long-distance flight that got delayed. I was aware of the risk of delay getting into shabbat, but fortunately was travelling with my non-jewish boss. The plane landed afer the candlelighting time, I packed away money/phone etc that's muktzah, asked my boss to safekeep till monday. Carried the rest of bag and the passport inside the airport. We had a car service arranged (assumed the driver wasn't jewish given majority of them aren't). DH knew of the risk of my getting delayed, so he did the candles for me. I must be the only staff who made MD of my firm a shabbos goy.. :o Since then, I would never travel on Fridays or erev yomtov on long-distance, or short-distance that's likely to arrive within 3hr of candlelighting, and I'll always think of contingency plans.

There is a small paper book about travelling and halachot, written from a very practical perspective.

according to HALACHA when you are landing on SHABBAT you are not allowed even to deplane, because its TECHUM SHABAAT (תחום שבת)

according to HALACHA when you are landing on SHABBAT you are not allowed even to deplane, because its TECHUM SHABAAT (תחום שבת)

I'm not a Posek, or the son of a Posek, but I don't know of any reliable Halachic authority that says that one can't disemark from an aircraft on Shabbos. Why would that be a problem? Of course, once you've left the aircraft then there's a difference of opinion about hoiw far one can go, with the more stringent options being about 400 metres (assuming that one's Makom Shevita is the disemarkation gate).

I was stuck at Heathrow a couple of years ago, having landed at 1230 with Shabbos at 1630, but we weren't going to get a gate until 1900, said the pilot (there was a bit of snow). Luckily we were allowed to use our cellphones and the Psak from my LOR (Local Orthodox - actually charedi - Rav) was that I should arrange (befrore Shabbos came in) for a car to take me home once I did get off the aircraft, and that would be preferable to staying at the LHR Terminal 4 Hilton. The reasoning (we thought), in later discussion is shul) was that there would be so many De'Rabonnon issurim that I'd probably have done, that it was better to do a Shvus with Amira Le'Akum before Shabbos (and I was instructed to pay the driver in advance). And that was even when I said I'd be happy to walk hoime from the airport, rather than getting the car (yes, it's 16 miles, but that's still preferable in my book than being stuck in in the airport Hilton without any real food - at least I would have been home by midnight). Anyway, it turned out that we got a gate a couple of hours later so I was home in reasonable time.

Don't really want to get into in-depth Halachic discussions on this one, though. I think we discussed it at the time in Mail.Jewish.

Very interesting...FF, could you give a goy a translation :)