In February 2025, Israel’s legislature took the unprecedented step of amending its Aviation Services Law to address a question no lawmaker had anticipated: how should passenger compensation rules apply during active warfare?
As Eyal Doron and Hugh Kowarsky explore in their analysis, as the Iron Swords War stretched from October 2023 into 2024, Israel’s aviation sector found itself caught between maintaining passenger rights established during peacetime and acknowledging the extraordinary circumstances facing airlines operating in a conflict zone. The resulting legislative and judicial developments offer a unique case study in how aviation law adapts to crisis, with courts weighing the reasonable expectations of passengers against the operational realities of airlines serving a nation under attack. These changes, while born from Israel’s specific geopolitical situation, raise broader questions about the flexibility of consumer protection frameworks in times of national emergency.
