By COLlive reporter
“Flying for Passover is a nightmare. Between the old folks and families with little kids, a flight might take 3 hours to board. #jewproblems,” Ben Waldman wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning.
But he was one of the lucky ones.
Frum Jews were among thousands of travelers who weren’t able to board their planes, after hundreds of domestic flights were cancelled due to bad weather in the Southeast the day before.
Delta Air Lines cancelled roughly 500 flights Thursday due to planes being out of position, crews being out of place and crew rest requirements after Wednesday’s storms, Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, a ground delay program was causing delays averaging more than 5 hours long for arriving flights at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta.
The severe weather on Wednesday “was unprecedented for Atlanta” and difficult to forecast, Delta chief operating officer Gil West said.
Many travelers were trying to get rebooked on flights back home or to their destinations after spending the night in the airport, while others waited in a long line for baggage assistance.
The combination of a busy spring break week with many families and children traveling and a worse-than expected storm led to major pain for travelers, the newspaper reported.
In airports in the New York and New Jersey area, dozens of frum Jews were seen scrambling to find alternatives as they were planning to head to Florida, California and Texas before Shabbos ahead of the Pesach holiday.
Liya C. wrote on Twitter: “@united flight cancelled and they can’t get me on another one until SUNDAY! I’m going to need a Passover miracle.”
A Lubavitcher from Crown Heights is with his family in Terminal 2 of the JFK airport. “It’s a mess,” he told COLlive.com. “There are around 80 frum Yidden here and people are extremely upset and confused.”
He said many travelers were bringing with them perishable food for Shabbos and Pesach itself. “One person here was traveling to his children and was bringing food for the Chabad House seder,” he said.
So far, many are being rescheduled on Sunday midday flights, “but a lot of the luggage is lost. I have in my suitcase maror and charoses which is going to go bad. This is unbelievable.”
Another person affected by the flight delays and cancellations was the sofer and mohel Rabbi Moshe Klein who was flying from Toronto, Canada, back home to Crown Heights in Brooklyn.
Sitting on the tarmac for an extra hour, he decided to seek Jews sitting on the plane and ended up helping 2 Jewish men put on Tefillin. For one of them, it was the first time in his life.
Mazal Tov and safe travels!
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