Q. Should one avoid traveling on Friday on this particular flight?
A. Taarich Yisroel (21: 15) quotes HoRav Eliashiv z"tl who maintains that on the onset one should avoid traveling on Friday if it may come to travel on Shabbos. However, he opines that it is permitted when in need or if done for the purpose of a mitzvah. He also quotes that Horav Ch. P. Sheinberg z"tl maintained a lenient opinion, when one is careful to abstain from melochos during the Shabbos time in the airplane, before returning to Erev Shabbos.
Horav Shlomo Millers opinion is that one should avoid traveling in principle on such long flights on a Friday, even when one will be landing on Erev Shabbos morning, since many unforeseeable factors are at play and delays are not uncommon. In case of real need it would be permitted even in the flight above described.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit”a
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