El Al to Compensate Passengers on Flight LY002 With Ticket to Europe

El Al announced Monday that it will compensate all 400 passengers on the infamous LY002 flight from New York that stopped in Athens on Nov. 15 with a round-trip flight to Europe, due to the inconvenience caused to the customers.

El Al said that the company “sees it necessary to clarify again, as stated in a press release on Nov. 19, that it did not blame the religious, secular or chareidi public in the events reported.”

The statement also said it supports the crew: “The El Al management backs and appreciates the air and ground crew members who operated on this flight in an admirable manner.”

Last week, as was reported in depth by Hamodia, El Al itself threatened to file a complaint with the police against passengers who caused a fuss in the plane. “We hope that the Israel Police will act to investigate the matter and bring the law to justice,” the company said, which now claims that it did not blame any group for what happened on the flight.

According to estimates, chareidi passengers on El Al flights constitute at least 20 percent of the passengers. According to Hadashot News, there are some flights, such as the flights to New York, where the chareidim account for over 30 percent of the passengers.

Commenting on El Al’s apology, journalist Yehudah Shlezinger of Yisrael Hayom, who was on the flight, said that “El Al’s apology is a poor joke. But that’s marginal. After El Al said last week that it would file a complaint against violent passengers, today they officially came out with a statement and said that they were wrong and that there was no violence. The blackening of the passengers is finally behind us.

“The truth won and that is what really counts,” he concluded.