Copied fromNevo Plaintiff 5 Moshe Peled 562.4 US dollars for expenses on taxis, food, drinks and a hotel.
Plaintiff 6 Galit Rav 252.37 USD for food and hotel expenses.
Plaintiff No. 9 Shlomo Kagan US$821.77 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Plaintiff Nos. 12-13 Vered and Daniel Kazernebowski US$529.56 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Plaintiff No. 14 Dangoor Foundation US$674.97 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Lee Etzion Plaintiff No. 17 144.78 USD for food, drink, and taxi expenses.
Rona Lotan plaintiff No. 18 US$396.97 for food, drinks, taxis and hotel expenses.
Shelly Bar Tal is suing No. 194 620.4 US dollars for food, drink, taxis and hotel expenses.
Eliyahu Segal and Gili Unger are suing Nos. 21-22 for US$888.4 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Hadas Barashi Carmel Plaintiff No. 23 1428.77 USD for food, drink, hotel taxi expenses.
Osnat Amram sues No. 26 for US$229.82 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Yaffa and Eran Botnauser are suing Nos. 27-28 for US$592.39 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Elad Cohen Plaintiff No. 29 958.61 USD for expenses on food, drink, taxis and a hotel.
Odelia and Ravid Katmur sue Nos. 31-32 US$584.4 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Hannah Frances sues No. 33 503.06 USD for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Daniel Levy Plaintiff No. 34 1227.75 USD for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Chaim and Rachel Heiman sue Nos. 40-41 US$674.72 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Tomer and Tal Spiegel Stauber sue Nos. 45-46 for US$1072.92 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
The Brinzweig family sues Nos. 48-50 US$158.67 for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
Smadar Libby Kiblitzky Plaintiff No. 53 637.2 USD for food, drink, taxi and hotel expenses.
From all of the above with regard to reimbursement of monetary expenses, the defendant must return the sum of 13,951 US dollars, which is 47,435.916 new shekels.
- In light of the aforesaid, the plaintiffs claim that by virtue of section 6(a) of the Aviation Services Law (Compensation and Assistance Due to Flight Cancellation or Change in its Conditions), 5772-2012, they are entitled to the compensation set out in the first addendum to the Law. According to them, each of the 58 plaintiffs is entitled to compensation in the amount of ILS 3,100, in view of the flight distance between New York and Ben Gurion Airport, which stands at 9,129 kilometers. Therefore, the total amount of compensation to which they are entitled, according to them, and which does not include the components of the personal claim for food, drink, clothing, taxis and hotels expenses due to the cancellation of the flight, is ILS 179,800. In addition, the defendant is obligated to provide each of them with exemplary compensation in the amount of ILS 10,390, in accordance with section 11(a) of the Aviation Services Law (Compensation and Assistance Due to Flight Cancellation or Change in its Conditions), 5772-2012, i.e., compensation in the total amount of ILS 602,620. According to them, this stems from the fact that the defendant did not grant them the benefits to which a passenger whose flight was canceled, as detailed in section 6 of the Law, and did not present them with the options available to them by law, including the options set out in section 6(a)(2) - refund of the consideration or an alternative flight. According to them, the defendant presented them with a fait accompli that they would spend Simchat Torah in a hotel in New York, without giving them a choice. Not only that. The defendant breached the duty of information imposed on it in accordance with section 14 of the law, which requires a flight operator to display an advertisement on its website detailing the passenger's rights in the event of flight delay or cancellation. In practice, it is claimed, the plaintiffs were not provided with any information or guidance from the defendant regarding their rights under the law.
- In the plaintiffs' view, the defendant's offer to compensate each passenger $300 for a future purchase through El Al and its request to send it invoices so that it can examine them and decide whether to reimburse the expenses incurred by the passengers is improper and inappropriate due to the events that occurred and led to the cancellation of the flight, as well as the poor treatment, according to them, which they received following the cancellation of the flight. Therefore, the plaintiffs petitioned to charge the defendant the sum of ILS 829,855.91. The details of the expenses are as follows:
- Reimbursement of expenses 47,435.916
- Sample compensation of ILS 10,390 per passenger, with a total of ILS 602,620 .
- Compensation for the cancellation of the flight is ILS 3,100 per passenger, with a total of ILS 179,800 .
- Alternatively, compensation for non-pecuniary damages and by virtue of the Torts Ordinance 580,000.
- The defendant, on the other hand, wishes to dismiss the claim. She clarified that the initial flight was supposed to land in Tel Aviv on Sunday, October 20, 2019, on the eve of Simchat Torah at 16:50 Israel time. The start time of Simchat Torah in Israel is at 17:41 (in some places in the country the holiday even started earlier), so the start time of the holiday was less than an hour from the original landing time. At 10:40 p.m., at the same time as the passengers boarded the plane, the flight crew began loading the baggage and cargo into the belly of the plane. After the last passenger boarded the plane, but before the cargo was finished loading in the belly of the plane, a sudden malfunction occurred during the loading of the cargo, when a certain part of the cargo compartment door broke, and one of the cargo pallets got stuck in the cockpit opening in a way that could not be extracted, and therefore the loaded trunk door could not be closed. It was 11:30 p.m. This malfunction made it impossible to complete the cargo loading procedure and delayed the plane's departure on time. Attempts by EL AL's maintenance teams to extract the surface or allow the door to close properly were unsuccessful. A maintenance team on behalf of the defendant made several attempts for an hour and a half in order to repair the malfunction. However, these attempts were in vain. As a result of the proximity of the holiday to Israel, and after attempts to fix the malfunction were unsuccessful and the passage of time since the original departure time, and due to the fact that El Al does not operate flights on Shabbat and in view of the proximity of the holiday in Israel, EL AL has decided to cancel the flight. This is in order to avoid desecrating the holiday. According to the claim, the flight cancellation notice was given to the passengers at 00:57 (New York time), that is, about an hour and a half after the original scheduled time of departure. This is because if the plane had taken off after 00:53, it would not have been possible to land in Tel Aviv before the start of the holiday, which would have caused the desecration of the holiday.
According to her, in the case at hand, the two qualifications set forth in the law in sections 6a(e)(1) and 6a(e)(3) of the law are met , since the discovery of the damage regarding the fracture in the part of the luggage compartment in question was not foreseeable and together with the duration of the flight, it entered into the date of the holiday, and therefore these circumstances constitute special circumstances that were not under the control of the operator, and that even if he had done everything in his power he could not have prevented those circumstances.