El Al
Photo: Danny Sadeh
Several El Al pilots go on strike, disrupting airline's flights schedule
Flights to and from New York and Brussels have been cancelled, along with a flight to Beijing scheduled for later this week; company considering taking labor dispute with pilots to court.
Several El Al pilots informed the airline on Sunday night that they would not come to work on Monday in light of a labor dispute with the company's management.
The pilots' strike led to the cancellation of flights to and from New York and Brussels, which were scheduled to take off on Sunday night. A flight to Beijing on Thursday has also been cancelled, and passengers on a flight to Barcelona on Sunday night had to be put on a different flight.
An El Al 787-9 Dreamliner.
El Al said in response that "Despite the labor agreement signed with the employees, including with the pilots, the pilots are striking and not meeting the tasks assigned to them by the company, against common practice. As a result, there are disruptions to flights. The company's management has made every effort to prevent hurting the passengers, however, it had to make changes today to the flights to Barcelona, New York and Brussels because the pilots had not come to work as was agreed upon. The company apologizes for any damages caused to the passengers and is working to find solutions for them. The company calls on the pilots to show up for flights and prevent further damage to the passengers."
A source in El Al's management said that "after the pilots claimed to be sick and didn't show up for work last time, in this round of flight disruptions the pilots said they cannot fly and the crew said they can't stay abroad with a delay, so the management was forced to send out two flight crews - one for each direction."
Sending two flight crews costs El Al a lot of money, because the two seats being used by the pilots who are not flying the plane are in business class.
"We can't send out two flight crews for every flight," the source said, stating that the company is considering turning to the Labor Court.
