New Israeli law says airlines must refund passengers for delays longer than two hours

When a flight that was supposed to take off at 5 A.M. is delayed until 5 P.M., the vacation starts off on the wrong foot. That’s what happened to Tania, who planned a trip to Moscow with her mother three months in advance. She’d worked out every last detail, including train tickets she’d prebooked from Moscow to a city in northern Russia. “The delay forced us to miss our train,” she says. “Our entire timetable was scheduled based on our takeoff and landing times, and the delay messed everything up.”

This experience is familiar to many travelers. But starting yesterday, a law went into effect mandating that airlines have to compensate travelers for changing flight times. The law, proposed by MK Ahmed Tibi, offers consumers protection in their dealings with tour companies and airlines.