Israeli carriers El Al and Israir announced Friday that they will offer special flights to bring back hundreds of Israeli pilgrims stranded in Romania due to problems returning from their Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to the Ukrainian city of Uman.
Their flights back to Israel with foreign airlines were canceled due to congestion and significant delays at land border crossings leaving Ukraine.
There are no direct flights to Ukraine because of the ongoing three-year-old Russo-Ukrainian War.
El Al said it would operate a flight from Bucharest to Ben-Gurion International Airport for 300 passengers on Saturday night, while Israir said that it would offer three flights on Sunday for a total of 540 travelers from Bacău and Bucharest to Israel.
The flights were available for purchase, an Israir spokesperson said Sunday.
El Al said that the decision to send a special flight was made following a discussion conducted by Transport Minister Miri Regev, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and MK Aryeh Deri, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party.
Uman, located some 125 miles south of Kyiv, has become a popular destination for tens of thousands of observant Jews who make the annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to pray at the tomb of Rabbi Nachman, an 18th-century rebbe who founded the Breslov Chassidic movement.
About 40,000 mainly Israeli Chasids made the journey this year.
Travel to and from Ukraine has been possible only via land crossings from neighboring countries since the 2022 Russian invasion.
