Two American Airlines employees were honored with a special award after demonstrating exceptional compassion to help a mourner reach the funeral of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a Chabad emissary murdered in a terror attack during Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney. Fifteen people were killed in the massacre; Schlanger left behind a wife and five children.
When news reached Eli Rothman, a childhood friend living in South Florida, he immediately booked a last-minute flight from Miami to Los Angeles to connect onward to Sydney. But his initial flight was delayed over two hours, jeopardizing his arrival at the funeral.
At Los Angeles International Airport, American Airlines customer service manager Zach Rekrucki received an urgent message on X explaining Rothman's plight. Despite Rothman holding a competing airline's ticket for the Sydney leg, Rekrucki and shift control center manager Mohamed Najjar made an extraordinary decision: they delayed American Airlines' trans-oceanic flight to Sydney by 46 minutes and issued Rothman a free ticket. The crew informed him the Sydney flight would wait.
When Rothman landed in Los Angeles, Rekrucki and Najjar escorted him to the waiting aircraft and expressed their condolences. He arrived in Sydney minutes before the funeral procession began.
American Airlines CEO Robert Isom praised the employees' conduct at a ceremony where the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation presented them with a medal recognizing their leadership during a time of grief.
