Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Their Flight To Miami Was Cancelled — Would They Make It For Passover?

(JTA) — The ancient Israelites had to cross the Red Sea. Four thousand years later, Jeannie R. Fisher had to get her family of five from New York City to South Florida before Passover started.

It was unclear which was harder.

Fisher, like thousands of Jews, descends annually from the Northeast to the Bubbe Belt for Passover. But her plans and others’ were thrown into turmoil on Friday when her 8 a.m. American Airlines flight from New York-La Guardia Airport to Miami was cancelled.

Fisher is an observant Jew. If her family couldn’t make it down to Bal Harbour by sundown, she’d be stuck at a seder meal in New Jersey.

The drama began at 2:30 a.m., when Fisher’s husband was woken by a buzz from his phone. The text message said their flight was cancelled, with no explanation. The couple then spent hours on the phone trying to find an alternative flight for themselves and three kids, ages 8, 12 and 14.

“I had a fantasy that someone would have their private jet and invite us on their trip to Miami,” she said. “That didn’t happen.”

In the end, they had two options — a free American Airlines flight from Boston, or a JetBlue flight from Newark, which meant buying five new tickets.

They did the math, and ordered the $800 Uber for 6:45 a.m. Boston or bust.

The Fishers made it to Boston Logan Airport in time for their flight, scheduled for before 1 p.m. But then they ran into another problem — their new flight was delayed.

This time, thankfully, it was only for 40 minutes. The plane took off at 1:33 p.m., with a 5:10 p.m. estimated arrival. Just in time for sundown.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.