"I tried to serve a full meal onboard due to the fact that we don't have food in terminal in the middle of the night
Only 15 customers in business class stayed on board to all the rest wanted to disembark
… meanwhile we had only 20 rooms available at the Radisson Hotel by the airport no busses available by Golden touch for crew and costumers…
From the call Center we got report that no available flights for rebooking
…Costumers that wanted to stay in the city and didn't want to wait (we didn't have enough rooms) I told them that they will get reimbursed for 250$ a night per room for 2 nights plus the taxis to their hotel and back to the airport
We handled a few rebooking of customers by ourselves plus some rebooking for urgent matters was done by TLV center
Later we got 10 more rooms at Five Towns Motor in (breakfast only) and after this 20 more rooms at La Guardia Plaza Hotel (Breakfast and Dinner)…
All customers that went to the Five Towns got Taxis that was paid by us, To LaGuardia Plaza we had Golden Touch vans, To Radisson they used the air train and shuttle bus…
Most VIP customers booked themselves hotels and we told them the same about the reimbursement…
At 05:00 last van left the airport to the hotels…
We have 20 rooms at the Radisson used, 10 rooms used at Five towns and 10 rooms and La Guardia Plaza
No Religious customers onboard and 99% where Israelis
We will set up pickup for the customers from the hotels on Monday Radisson, Five Towns at 16:00 ,LaGuardia plaza at 15:15"
(Emphasis not in the original - A.M.).
In summarizing the incident in Hebrew, the station manager noted that about an hour before the flight was canceled, they had received a report from API about only 20 rooms located at the Radisson Hotel near the airport, and he had already asked to order four buses from Golden Touch, and their dispatcher said that he had no people available and vehicles until the morning. Before disembarking the passengers, he recommended serving food to the passengers on the plane because he knew that there was no food in the terminal at night, and this would also give the station time to prepare and find hotels and transportation, but most of the passengers wanted to get off the plane. He checked in for an alternative flight, but a check with Sagi Agranat revealed that it was not possible to receive alternative flights because there were no seats on all flights. It was inexplicably stated that the announcement was in relation to the cost of $250 per room as a refund, but "regarding the food, it was not promised" and the issue of compensation was stated that the matter would be discussed by the legal department. Towards 2:00 they were given another 10 rooms in the motel near the airport and towards 4:00 another 20 rooms at the Plaza Hotel and not Guardia. Only the Radisson Hotel had a solution for all-day meals plus kosher meals. Most of the passengers wanted hotels in the city and managed on their own. The treatment was very difficult because there was no satisfactory solution in terms of shuttle hotels and alternative flights. At 2:00 a.m., he started receiving calls from customers for whom the hotel does not check in, and it turned out that no guarantee was sent to them for rooms via API and only after his commitment to written prices did they agree to accept the passengers, which he said should not have happened because they have pre-made arrangements with the hotels. Towards 5:30 a.m., there were no more passengers left for treatment. He said they had sent ground attendants to the Radisson Hotel to be with the passengers until Monday and meet their needs. On Sunday, they were given another 20 rooms at the Radisson Hotel, and he sent Mario to the motel to transfer the passengers to the Radisson. In addition to the Plaza Hotel, he sent a person in charge of the moving agent who also transferred the passengers from this hotel to the Radisson. At the Radisson Hotel, the customers received food, breakfast, lunch and dinner. At Matul they got breakfast and also at the plaza. The flight attendants who sent them handled a number of requests from passengers at the hotel. They were only able to arrange an alternative flight for the Jacobi family if with 2 children for Sunday, later there was a problem with their booking and United accepted them on a standby basis. They were given seats on a split plane and the mother refused to fly like that. They had to bring them to the Radisson and arrange special kosher food for them, and the mother had been in contact with him for two days. Most of the passengers were Israelis. Most of them wanted to leave for Israel on Sunday. He didn't see a single religious person on the flight. They scheduled a pick-up of the passengers from the hotel about 3 hours before the flight after lunch. Two buses were sent that arrived on time. They handed out $20 food vouchers to all passengers. A number of passengers complained that there was a long line for distributing the vouchers and that they did not want to eat at all.