Being told to shack up with same sex strangers by an airline trying to accommodate displaced passengers when

(a) the airline’s choice for hotel/hotels are sold out; and/or
(b) rooms at a negotiated rate in the applicable location are fully drawn down

isn’t unique to just this incident; nor is it unique to LY. I’ve seen it done repeatedly over the years and by multiple airlines from the EMEA region.



Not news to me, but that seems to not answer the asked question:

“Aren’t the majority of TLV-bound passengers flying on an average Thursday Jewish regardless of airline?”

I would be surprised if there was no survey data about this kind of question when it comes to Thursday departures to TLV (which would mean using Thursday or Friday arrivals data on the whole).

I would imagine strangers shared rooms because they didn't want to go off by themselves- although apparently a small group did. Think about it- to be alone for Shabbat, with potentially nothing. Sharing a room isn't the end of the world.

I was not debating religion so I don’t accept the religious debate characterization as a good excuse to try to shut me down on my saying that I am no fan of adults engaging in discrimination against airlines or flight crew members based on the prejudicial assumptions about the religious identity and any related religious duties of other adults, in this case of this airline and flight’s pilot/flight crew members who are their own keepers of their own identity.

Thank you for answering the question and enabling a debate on what is life/health-saving. Some may say that since resources are limited and money is fungible, commercially-appropriate decisions to legally maximize returns on asset (read: plane) use may well be a life/health-maximizing decision and would be the same regardless of the religious identity of flight crew members, a majority of the airline’s owners, and/or airline C-suite management.

I prefer that LY should not be held to a different, more prejudicial standard than other airlines serving TLV; but some others quite clearly see it differently.

I would prefer that LY should be viewed as a normal carrier, but it’s not being treated by all as such. And thus LY is caught in some kind of culture war where it can’t be all things to all people anymore than any non-Israeli carrier and yet pays an extra price in a way for its Israeli affiliation — whether dealing with Israelis or not.

I am no big fan of LY, and I am a critic of what LY did in this flight’s circumstance. But I am also a critic of LY being held to a different standard and criticism because of its Israeli identity and/or any of its Jewish affiliation. Maybe it’s long overdue for LY to start maximizing the use of its planes on all days of the week, and just get on with saying they are just a commercial airline trying to legally maximize the returns on their assets? But even that wouldn’t solve this kind of situation, but at least then LY would have a more level playing field in the space to commercially compete and put some downward pressure on airfares overall.

That’s clearly not true, as maximizing many kinds of returns on assets helps to directly or indirectly save lives and to improve the quality of life for those facing medical problems.

I would rather see LY fleet utilization be improved by more full week operations as that would free up assets or help toward generating/preserving income that can do more good than spoilage of a sort.

I’m not discussing religious law but you sure seem to be trying. Thank you for the honorific anyway.

I’m discussing double standards being applied to LY, LY’s potential sub-optimum fleet utilization due to the double standard applied to LY, the consequences of such double standard, and my distaste for such inconsistent standards as the sort with which I took issue earlier.