A friend was scheduled to fly El Al from NYC (not sure JFK or Newark) to TLV this coming Saturday night around midnight. El Al informed him today that the flight takeoff time was changed to around 9:30pm - roughly 5 minutes after Shabbos ends.
Why would El Al do that? Presumably it will negatively impact a lot of their customers. (I don't believe for a moment that El Al would harm their business just to spite religious passengers.)
11:30pm departure most probably involves chillul Shabbos too. Was a competent LOR consulted before booking that?
The story linked seems to indicate another flight switched. I would guess that there's a common reason for the two, maybe something expected at TLV at the original scheduled arrival, that needs to be avoided, or maybe aircraft needed for something.