Monday, November 23, 2020

Flying on Two Wings and a Prayer: You can’t buy a ticket on the ‘world’s first Christian airline’—at least, not yet

 



The Wall Street Journal
By Spencer Jakab
November 23, 2020 1:41 pm ET

While it could make for a particularly effective loyalty program, devout fliers won’t be able to earn elite status or even rack up frequent flier miles on Judah 1. “The world’s first Christian airline” has been flying for years, but in smaller planes and without that official status from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Now that it is about to be certified and will take delivery of its first wide-body airplane, a Boeing 767-200 ER, with plans to add five more aircraft next year, founder Everett Aaron says he gets 50 or 60 emails a day asking if he will be flying to certain destinations. The nonprofit, which undertakes Christian missionary work, was most recently transporting supplies to hurricane-ravaged Central America and has no plans to add scheduled flights. The interest is there, though.

“It’s a bit overwhelming,” says Mr. Aaron.

However tempting, it is probably wise to keep prayer out of the business. There have been attempts to mix religion and commercial aviation, such as a sharia-compliant airline based in Malaysia that quickly folded. Alaska Airlines for years handed out “prayer cards” with meals but finally stopped in 2012 because of passenger complaints.

The Lord can be your co-pilot, but not your flight attendant.