Ask and you shall receive. For one Tel Aviv – bound passenger, all it took was a note to United Airlines to re-accommodate her schedule. But rather than re-book her, United re-scheduled her flight to depart nearly there hours later!
A Tel Aviv Schedule Change Request Leads To An Unlikely Answer On United
Today is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism. The Day of Atonement or “Sabbath of Sabbaths” is a day in which observants are encouraged to repent for their sin for the last year. Yom Kippur runs from sundown on Sunday to sundown on Monday. During that time, observants are not allowed to travel, except for emergencies.
That presented a problem for many in New York thanks to a poorly-scheduled United flight from Newark to Tel Aviv. For years, UA90 has departed Newark at 10:50pm, allowing observant passengers sufficient time to reach the airport after shutdown (not just on Yom Kippur, but after any sabbath or other holy day).
During the pandemic, United re-scheduled the light to depart at 8:05pm. While that is still after sundown, it does not leave sufficient time for travelers to depart their homes after sundown and reach the airport in time for the flight.
Rather than delay her trip by a day, Miriam wrote to United Airlines’ Chairman Oscar Munoz and CEO Scott Kirby. She explained her predicament and noted that many other passengers who would ordinarily fly United to Tel Aviv faced the same dilemma.
Per Dan’s Deals, Miriam received a call back from Wendy in United’s executive offices. She thanked her for her email and said that United would move the flight back to 10:50pm in order to accommodate observant travelers.
It was as simple as that.
CONCLUSION
I think the takeaway from this story is that you must ask in order to receive…and that it never hurts to ask. While I never would have guessed United would agree to re-schedule a flight (versus re-scheduling a passenger) on the basis of one email, here we have proof positive that it does happen.
Miriam, I hope you enjoy your flight tonight.
Nice to hear when businesses use common sense and are accommodating.
One small edit, Oscar Munoz is Executive Chairman of United not President. Brett Hart is President.
Dan is the man. So are his readers.
There are some who would say of course this was done for Jewish passengers. They would not have similarly amended their schedule for a flight for a muslim holy day.
muslims dont have the same restrictions on travel as their Jewish cousins
Yes, Andy, this is a flight to TEL AVIV, not to Doha…
Well, she has been GS since the age of… 2 so when hearing from her, Kirby did the math right away. Each year, she spends more than the rest of the people on that flight combined. Kirby accommodated her right away and could careless of the rest of the pax on that flight. He also sent out emails/letters to them “You all were very lucky tonight. Had she request to have the flight by herself, all of you would have to take flight the next day. So you all thank her now”. 🙂
Makes sense though there might have been a passenger who was counting on a ride at TLV before the driver/relative had to get to work for the night shift at 5 pm Tuesday. There are probably nobody with connecting flights but maybe someone who wants to catch a bus to a far away small town in Israel.
Most of the passengers probably already planned to fly at 8:05 pm, leaving while it was still daylight.
Still, a good story.
Look how many people she helped not do melacha on Yom Kippur. What a zechus! Halevai we can all find such ingenious ways to help others be closer to Hashem.
If this flight was from anywhere in Europe, thanks to EU261 this request would have been an automatic no.
I can’t believe United did not consider this when they changed the schedule.. I am happy for Miriam, but I must admit something bothers me about possibly inconveniencing a whole plane of people for a passenger’s religious beliefs. Perhaps the change was done far enough in advance and the flight was not full, so that it was not a problem. I assume most of the passengers are Jewish as I think Israel is only letting its citizens in, but some of them surely has made plans based on the flight time when they booked?
Simple demographic segmentation analysis. Only Israeli citizens can enter the country now; Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar; United is flying daily with the emptiest aircraft it has ever seen on this high-traffic route; observant Jews are always a major part of the passenger manifest and even more so now as many hold dual citizenship and are not fazed by Covid restrictions: and UA wants to remain first choice to Israel as Delta and American re-enter the NYC-TLV market and El Al attempts to restructure itself to start flying again. Kirby knows where his bread is buttered.
Ridiculous. Don’t like the flight schedule? Take a different flight. The changed timing might have had adverse consequences for other passengers. We should not be accommodating the whims and fancies of those choosing to follow these archaic voodoo rituals and proscriptions ( of any/all religions). They want to live in the c16th? Let them take the donkey service instead…
I hate to be a buzzkill…….but I think this is getting way more hoopla than it deserves. I used to work in CO scheduling and the TLV flights were routinely rescheduled as a result of Jewish holidays. Typically the schedule change would be loaded as early as possible to save on rebooking/GDS costs, but there were occasions where they were done close-in to departure date for a variety of reasons such as slot protection and aircraft availability. So while it seems like UA was the “good Samaritan” so to speak, considering a resked after a loyal customer requested it, I think it was more of a convenience of the timing of the request relative to a planned schedule change. I could be wrong, but thats the first thing that came to mind when I saw this post.
UA could have had a ground hold for that flight 4 hrs before scheduled departure and call it a delay…. I’d rather have them be truthful upfront.