You could call it haredi musical chairs.
At the start of any flight carrying a significant number of haredi passengers, there will always be a kerfuffle of sorts at boarding. Attendant call buttons pressed. Vague murmurings of negotiations between passengers. Shifting of seats. And it always involves haredi passengers.
If you’ve ever been on a flight originating and/or arriving in Israel, you’ve probably witnessed the hullabaloo. Typically it’s innocuous, but recently headlines were made when an El Al flight was held up for an inordinate amount of time because male passengers refused to take their assigned seats, which happened to be next to women. Their fellow passengers weren’t keen on playing musical chairs, which seems fair considering they’ve purchased and selected their spots. We’ve all taken transatlantic flights. When boarding commences, we’re just looking forward to taking our seats and trying to catch some shut-eye. Who needs the uninvited hassle of seat changes?
The trend seems to have developed only in the past decade or so. I personally can’t remember this being an issue even five years ago. But now it’s a given. It happened to me recently on a flight from Zurich to JFK.
Now, I’m happy to change my seat if I feel that it’s a reasonable request, such as a child and parent being separated. For me, gender segregation isn’t reasonable. If these male passengers prefer not to be seated next to women, let them book together with a friend, or purchase an empty seat.
And one aspect that people are failing to mention, but really bothers me on the human level, is the stress this game of musical chairs causes to the flight attendants. They’re busy stowing bags and trying to make sure that the flight departs on time. Suddenly they’re forced to oversee unwanted seat changes. I’ve often seen a flight attendant kindly request that the passengers take their assigned seats and that s/he would see what s/he could do once the flight is airborne. But that never seems to suffice. And of course these spontaneous seat changes wreak havoc on the in-flight service when it comes to correctly delivering kosher meals.
One proposal currently being put forward is that El Al reserve a block of seats per flight that would be gender segregated thus avoiding disturbances on the flight itself. However it’s important to remember that this issue doesn’t only affect El Al; the flight I mentioned above was on American.
Whats your point of view on this issue? As paying customers should the airline try its hardest to accommodate these male passengers? Or should these passengers respectfully accept the reality that unless they hire a private jet, they may end up sitting next to women?
