Rosh Hashanah 2026: How to Book an Airport Transfer in Time

Rosh Hashanah 5787 begins on the evening of Friday 11 September 2026 and ends after nightfall on Sunday 13 September. Both days of the holiday run straight into Shabbat, creating one long stretch of almost two and a half days - with an unusually dense wave of travel immediately before it and immediately after. If you have a flight in that window, guests to collect from Ben Gurion, or a holiday meal on the other side of the country, this is a booking to close now rather than in the week of the holiday itself. Below is what our booking calendar actually looks like through the Tishrei months, and what it means for you.

The dates worth marking

Notice the pattern repeating this year: nearly every holiday either falls on Shabbat or runs directly into it. In practice the whole of Tishrei is built from long two- and three-day blocks, with narrow windows between them that everybody is trying to squeeze into.

Why the eve of Rosh Hashanah is the busiest day of the year

On an ordinary day demand spreads across the whole 24 hours. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah three things happen at once: everyone flying out for the holidays heads to the airport, whole families cross the country for the holiday meal, and inbound flights land carrying relatives coming to visit. All three streams funnel into exactly the same hours - morning through early afternoon, because after that everyone needs to be home.

The fleet, by contrast, does not grow for the occasion. It is the same fleet as on any ordinary Tuesday, except that now everybody wants it inside the same four or five hours. So vehicles do not fill up gradually that day; they are taken all at once, and usually well before the day itself. Larger vehicles - vans and minibuses - go first, simply because there are few of them.

Traffic brings its own schedule forward too. The peak on the eve of a holiday is not at 17:00 but around midday, and at noon Highway 1, Highway 2 and Highway 6 look the way they normally look during the evening commute. A trip that takes half an hour on a normal day can take an hour and a quarter at precisely that moment.

A holiday joined to Shabbat: what actually changes

Because the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on Shabbat this year, there is a near-continuous stretch from Friday evening until the holiday ends on Sunday night. For most of our customers that translates into two simple facts: everything that has to happen before the holiday must happen by Friday midday, and whatever slips gets pushed to Sunday night.

The result is that the end of the holiday becomes a peak in its own right. Anyone with a flight on Sunday night, or an early departure on Monday morning, is competing for the same vehicles in the same hours. If that is your situation, this is the booking to lock in earliest - a car setting out after the holiday ends is the most sought-after resource of the entire period.

When to book: lead times for the Tishrei holidays

A question that comes up constantly at this time of year is what to do when the hour is not final yet - waiting on leave approval, say, or not knowing whether you will be leaving from home or from the office. The practical answer is to reserve anyway. Changing the time or the pickup address is one message away as long as it reaches us with reasonable notice, and cancelling up to 24 hours before pickup costs nothing. Hunting for a free car at midday on the eve of the holiday is another matter entirely.

What time to leave home on the eve of a holiday

The usual rule for an international flight - be at Ben Gurion three hours before departure - still holds, but on the eve of a holiday it is not enough on its own. You have to add a margin for the journey itself, because in exactly the hours when most people want to travel, the roads to the airport are the busiest in the country.

Our simple recommendation: on the eve of a holiday add 45 to 60 minutes to the pickup time you would have chosen on a normal day, and if the choice is yours, be picked up before 10:00. The hours after 11:00 on such a day are the least predictable of the entire year. The site also has a departure-time calculator that works out a recommended pickup time from your town and flight time, and it makes a good starting point for the conversation.

The terminal behaves differently as well. In the days before the holidays, security and check-in queues run longer than usual, and arriving exactly on time means arriving late. In a period like this, an extra fifteen minutes waiting at the airport beats fifteen minutes stuck in traffic.

Travelling on Shabbat and on the holiday days themselves

Our dispatch desk runs around the clock, Shabbat and holidays included, so a ride can be booked and answered by a person on the holiday days themselves. Those hours are priced differently from an ordinary weekday, and the difference is stated to you upfront on the call - no meter running, no surprise at the end of the road. If the surcharge changes the picture for you, shifting the ride by an hour or two sometimes solves it, and we will tell you so plainly.

Collecting guests from the airport over the holidays

Tishrei is not only a month of departures but of arrivals. A large share of our rides in this period are collections - parents, children or relatives landing for the holidays, usually after a long flight and with plenty of luggage. Two things make it smooth: giving us the flight number, and telling us how many suitcases there really are.

With a flight number we track the actual landing and update the driver ourselves, so a delay to the flight is not charged - the driver simply sets out later. Waiting on arrival is free for up to 60 minutes, and the clock starts at the real landing rather than the time printed on the ticket. On holiday days, when passport control and baggage take longer, that is the difference between a calm arrival and a string of anxious phone calls.

Families, children and groups

A family ride to a holiday meal is a very different booking from one passenger heading to the airport. Safety seats, boosters and infant seats are installed and secured before the vehicle leaves for you, at 50 shekels per ride - a single charge that does not change even if several seats are needed on the same trip. Tell us the ages and weights of the children when booking so we fit the right seat in advance.

For larger families and family gatherings there is a simpler answer than three separate cars: one minibus for up to 20 passengers, with a real luggage bay. Beyond the comfort there is an advantage that is easy to overlook - nobody in the family has to drive home at the end of a long evening. As noted above, book these two weeks ahead.

Prices over the holiday period

Holiday or not, the price is agreed in advance and there is no meter. It follows from the route, the number of passengers, the vehicle type, the hour of travel and the fact that it is a holiday - and every addition is shown to you before departure rather than revealed at the end. If traffic turns out heavier than expected, which happens often on the eve of a holiday, that is our problem rather than yours: the number agreed is the number you pay.

Want an order of magnitude before picking up the phone? The site has a price calculator by town, passenger count, hour and luggage. It is an estimate rather than a final quote, and the binding price is agreed with us before departure. Payment itself is made directly to the driver at the end of the ride, in cash or by Bit transfer.

What to tell us when you book