A request to approve a class action lawsuit against El Al was filed last week in the Tel Aviv District Court, accusing the airline of improperly refunding passengers for canceled flights through installment payments instead of issuing the money back in one immediate payment.

The lawsuit focuses on situations in which passengers had already fully paid for their tickets before the flights were canceled. The filing was submitted by an attorney who is also a customer of the airline. Represented by attorneys Nitzan Gadot and Doron Radai of the Radai-Gadot law firm, the plaintiff estimates the damages suffered by the affected group of customers at more than 2.5 million shekels.

According to the filing, El Al follows a policy under which customers whose flights are canceled receive their refunds divided into the same number of installments used during the original purchase transaction. The lawsuit argues that this practice continues even when the airline had already collected the entire payment long before the cancellation took place. The plaintiff contends that this violates Israel’s Aviation Services Law, which requires airlines to return the full refund within 21 days and does not permit refunds to be spread out over installments.

The request states that “this conduct causes passengers real financial harm, including by tying up their credit limit and denying them the ability to make immediate use of their money.”

In the specific case described in the filing, the plaintiff says she bought a Sun d’Or ticket to Warsaw for her daughter and paid El Al in two installments. According to the lawsuit, the payments for the ticket were completed in January 2026, but after the April flight was canceled at the end of March due to updated directives that sharply reduced operations at Ben Gurion Airport, the airline refunded the money through two future installments. This occurred even though the full amount had already been paid months earlier.

The plaintiff said she was stunned by the airline’s handling of the refund because El Al had already held the full payment for an extended period before the cancellation. “Why, then, once the ticket was canceled by El Al, is the refund being delayed by the company?” she asked.

The lawsuit states that the plaintiff later contacted El Al seeking clarification as to why the refund was divided into installments despite the ticket having already been fully paid. According to the filing, the airline responded by placing responsibility on the credit card company and claiming that the installment refund process was determined by the credit card issuer. The plaintiff argues that “El Al’s puzzling response was that it had made the refund in one payment, and that when a ticket charged in an installment transaction is canceled, the method of the refund is the responsibility of the credit card company.”

However, according to the filing, when the plaintiff contacted the credit card company, she was told the exact opposite — that El Al itself had instructed that the refund be issued in two installments.

The request further alleges that “by continuing to hold passengers’ money after their flights were canceled for a period exceeding the refund period set by law, El Al is unjustly enriching itself at their expense and effectively turning passengers whose flights were canceled into a source of financing for itself.”

El Al responded to the report by saying: “The statement of claim in question has not yet been received by the company. Once it is received, the company will study it and respond through the legal proceeding as customary.”

{Matzav.com}