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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Spiritual danger in the skies.
US Airways caused a stir last week when it announced it would no longer show movies on domestic flights in effort to save fuel and other costs.
The airline unwittingly may have added a customer base.
The Rabbinic Commission of Transportation Matters recently ranked airlines based on, among other criteria, movies shown on board. They were the first such rankings of their kind, offered as guidance to the ultra-Orthodox Jewish traveler.
Those airlines that did not show movies at all received the highest rankings.
The commission states, alongside the rankings, published in two ultra-Orthodox newspapers: “The problem of in-flight movies constitutes a terrible spiritual danger.”
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who constitute 8 percent of the Israeli Jewish population but are the fastest growing segment, generally view television programming and movies to be a corrupting influence and an infiltration of secularism into the community.
But what to do during an in-flight movie?
Individual screens that can be turned off still pose a danger, the commission said, because “it is still possible to see the screens of other passengers, and therefore travelers are advised to equip themselves with a ‘folding curtain,’” according to a partial translation of the report in the secular Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.
The national Israeli carrier, El Al, ranked poorly because it offers individual screens only on flights from Tel Aviv to London and to the United States.
Ranked highest were Swiss International Airlines and British Airways flights from Tel Aviv because they do not show movies at all.
Perhaps U.S. Airways should add a route to Israel.