He Was Going To Miss The Rabbi’s Funeral After The Bondi Beach Terror Attack—American Moved Gates, Held The Flight, And Comped The Ticket

A cascading delay into Los Angeles was about to keep travelers from reaching the funeral of the Sydney rabbi killed in the Bondi Beach attacks. United wouldn’t hold its flight—but American Airlines did something airlines almost never do: it moved gates to eliminate the terminal scramble, held its own Sydney departure, and then comped a new ticket entirely. What followed was a behind-the-scenes relay from cockpit to operations to the gate that turned an impossible connection into a just-in-time arrival for the funeral.

American Airlines has started holding flights for connecting passengers when possible, in limited circumstances. For one customer, though, they went further than I recall any airline going before.

The grieving passenger was about to miss Sydney. The airline pulled off a sequence that reads like fiction: a gate swap to eliminate a terminal sprint, a crew-and-ops relay waiting at the door, and a transpacific departure that stayed on the ground just long enough to get him onboard—at no charge—so he could make it to a funeral on time.

Dan’s Deals relays the story of four longtime friends chatting in a WhatsApp group they’ve kept going since school, despite living in different cities (Los Angeles, Miami, Brooklyn, and Sydney). They kept connected through Sydney Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was chatting in the group.

News broke of the Bondi Beach attack in Sydney where a terrorist hit the “Chanuka by the Sea” event. Rabbi Eli Schlanger is killed. His wife is badly wounded, and their infant is struck by shrapnel.

VIDEO: Crowds flee as gunshots ring out at Sydney’s Bondi Beach pic.twitter.com/NSAjd5Itzx

— Avi Mayer אבי מאיר (@AviMayer) December 14, 2025

Insane footage shows a bystander attacking and disarming one of the terrorists, who appears to have been armed with a long rifle, during today’s shooting attack on an event celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. pic.twitter.com/mJceco22bJ

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) December 14, 2025

“We can’t turn off our menorahs!”

This interview made me cry.

Every Jewish person needs to watch this. pic.twitter.com/lgH6VOxjGR

— Yaakov Langer (@jacklanger) December 17, 2025

The three friends in the U.S. decided they needed to get to Sydney, even though they don’t the funeral will even be there. They booked United award tickets using transferred Chase points. Then:

• One passenger books New York JFK – Los Angeles on American to connect to United 839.
  
• Another books Miami – Los Angeles on American.

They were going to meet up for that United flight, but connecting times began collapsing. New York JFK – Los Angeles ran on time, but the Mimai flight faced rolling delays. It looked like he wasn’t going to make the separate ticket on United.

While the JFK passenger waited in Los Angeles, he messaged American on Twitter about the situatiojn, asking for help. American’s twitter team may not have the personality and sense of humor that it had years ago, but I find they’re the best at responsiveness and assisting with travel issues in real time (Delta, by the way, is the least responsive of the major carriers.)

American’s Twitter team messaged back that they’d alerted Los Angeles on the ground and suggested asking United for help as well. United is, after all, the first who rolled out ‘ConnectionSaver’ to hold flights.

Credit: Dan’s Deals

Two of the friends met at the United gate and spoke with the agent there. They already had the Miami passenger’s boarding pass printed and notes on his inbound American flight. They weren’t going to hold the flight, but they would stay alert for options.

Onboard that flight from Miami to L.A., a flight attendant brought that passenger a note: American has coordinated with United, can’t hold United 839, but American will hold their own LA – Sydney flight if he wants to buy a ticket for it.

• American’s Sydney flight departs from the Tom Bradley terminal. The Miami flight was supposed to come into terminal 4.

• American changed the Miami flight arrival to the Bradley terminal to save time.

• He was also moved forward on the plane to get off first.

  

• Ground staff was waiting for “the Sydney passenger,” takes him straight to the gate, and even asks for a quick photo.

At the gate, American tells him they’re not just accommodating him, they’re comping his ticket to Sydney. That American flight pushed back for Sydney 19 minutes after the Miami flight blocked in.

Both the United and American flights made announcements asking everyone to remain seated so these passengers could get off first. They had to head straight to the Rabbi’s funeral. Both airlines provided escorts through immigration and customs. On landing they learned the funeral time, and arrived moments before the funeral began.

DansDeals contacted American to verify the story. They confirmed the account and shared,

We’re proud of our teams in Los Angeles and Sydney, in our Integrated Operations Center and across American for living out our shared purpose of caring for people on life’s journey. Often, that mission is fulfilled quietly — behind the scenes and in life’s most difficult moments — one customer at a time.

I have to give American, that’s caring for people on life’s journey. It wasn’t a great slogan, but they made it work. While I have had my share of criticisms of American, I’ve also found them to go above and beyond doing the right thing on many occasions (and even at scale, for instance they were one of the best honoring refund rules at the start of the pandemic).

Changing a gate on arrival is plausible. Gates get swapped constantly – but not usually for a passenger. Seats get moved forward for quick deplaning when available, and crew frequently ask passengers to stay seated for passengers with short connections. Airlines meet passengers as they deplane for tight connections – though usually only VIPs and high revenue passengers (in American’s case, ConciergeKey customers).

Holding an international long-haul departure for a single passenger is a big ask:

• crew duty limits
  
• pushback/taxi sequencing
  
• passengers already onboard
  
• weight & balance calculations
  
• conflicts with an inbound aircraft using that gate next
  
• onward connections in Sydney

Making this all work with a 19-minute inbound-to-outbound connection was exceptional. And that’s before they comped a walkup transpacific ticket.