Ben Gurion Airport rose to the top of a global ranking Friday morning of airports experiencing the most severe disruptions, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24. Israel’s main international airport received the maximum disruption score of 5.0 for both arrivals and departures as repeated announcements warned passengers of flight delays.
Flightradar24’s disruption index ranges from 0 to 5 and takes into account the number of delayed flights, average delay times and cancellations. A score of 3.5 or higher already indicates significant disruption. A 5.0 rating does not necessarily mean that every flight is delayed or canceled, but that the airport’s overall level of disruption is currently at the top of the scale.
Frustrated passengers at Ben Gurion Airport amid widespread flight disruptions
(Video: Iris Lifshitz-Klieger)
Check-in areas at both Terminal 3, Ben Gurion’s main international terminal, and Terminal 1 were less crowded than Thursday, suggesting that operations there had begun returning to normal after the previous day’s chaos. Conditions were markedly different beyond security, however, with the duty-free area and departure gates heavily crowded.
Arriving passengers also reported lengthy waits, first for flights to Israel and then for their baggage, with some saying they waited more than two hours for their luggage after landing.
Some flights scheduled to depart Thursday had still not taken off Friday morning. On Ben Gurion Airport’s online departures board, some flights listed alongside those departing on time showed updated departure times at least two hours later than originally scheduled.
Family spends night at airport after canceled flight
Some passengers have been stranded at the airport since Thursday.
The Hadar family, from Kfar Haroeh in central Israel, told ynet about spending the past day at Ben Gurion after their long-awaited vacation was thrown into disarray.
“My husband has just finished his seventh round of military reserve duty, and we had been looking forward so much to this vacation to Vienna that we booked a long time ago,” said Rinat Hadar, the mother of the family. “We arrived at Terminal 3 around noon yesterday by train and were shocked to discover that Ben Gurion Airport was closed.”
The family arrived at the height of the disruption. Their flight had been scheduled to depart at 6:50 p.m. but was canceled.
“There was no representative, nobody to talk to, and we were referred to the airline’s chat service,” Hadar said. “We realized the next available flight to Vienna wouldn’t be until Monday.”
Ben Gurion Airport's Terminal 1
Faced with five disappointed children, ages 2, 5, 8, 12 and 14½, the family decided not to return home. Instead, they bought seven new tickets to Salzburg on an Israir flight scheduled to depart from Terminal 1 at 6:30 a.m. Friday.
But after 7 a.m., they were still at the airport.
“So we spent the night in the terminal. This flight was delayed by an hour as well, and we’re still waiting for the gate to open,” Hadar said. “We’ve lost a huge amount of money in this crazy situation. We lost the money for the hotel in Vienna, the rental car that was waiting for us yesterday, and we had to buy new tickets for seven people.”
The Hadar children
She said the additional costs amounted to thousands of shekels and the family did not know whether it would be reimbursed for its canceled Austrian Airlines flight.
“We had been looking forward to this vacation so much that we decided to stay optimistic and not disappoint the children,” she said. “Hopefully we’ll take off soon and finally start our vacation.”
Passengers stranded in Barcelona
The disruption was also affecting flights bound for Tel Aviv.
Passengers on an Arkia flight from Barcelona to Tel Aviv that had been scheduled to depart at 6:50 p.m. Thursday were initially informed that the flight had been postponed until 11 p.m. because of the disruption in Israel. But the flight did not depart then either.
Israeli passengers stranded in Barcelona
“We’ve been up all night,” Hadas, one of the passengers, told ynet. “After waiting on the plane for an hour and a half, the captain told us there was ‘active weather.’ They promised they would arrange hotel vouchers and let us know when the flight would leave. They took us off the plane, and we waited hours for luggage that never came out and then for vouchers that never arrived.”
She said no Arkia representative appeared at the airport and passengers dealt only with a Spanish ground-services representative.
“Babies, elderly people — everyone arrived yesterday at 4 p.m. for the original check-in,” she said. “Only 30 people managed to get hotel vouchers from the local representative. He ran out and said that late at night there was nobody he could speak to and it would have to wait until morning. And that’s without even talking about food or drinks, which are basic things to provide during a delay of 12 hours or more.”
Arkia later informed passengers that the flight had been rescheduled for 2 p.m. local time.
“The main problem is that 2 p.m. means landing at 7 p.m.,” Hadas said. “There are a lot of religious, Shabbat-observant passengers with us. They are extremely frustrated.”
Observant Jews refrain from travel and a range of other activities from sundown Friday until nightfall Saturday.
Meanwhile, El Al canceled Flight LY8 from New York after passengers had already boarded the aircraft.
Because of the delays, the flight was expected to land in Israel after the start of the Sabbath on Friday evening. El Al, Israel’s flag carrier, does not operate flights on the Sabbath, unlike Arkia.
Regev flew out day before airport chaos, records show extensive overseas travel
Transportation Minister Miri Regev flew to Marrakesh, Morocco, a day before the continuing chaos erupted at Israel’s main international airport, as an analysis of her official calendars revealed that she spent more than a month abroad on average each year during the first three years of her current term.
An analysis of Regev’s calendars from 2023 through 2025 by the Minister Meter project of the watchdog news site Shakuf examined about 3,562 entries and offered an unusual look at how the transportation minister divided her time among ministry work, political activity, official ceremonies and taxpayer-funded trips abroad.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Ben Gurion Airport
According to the analysis, Regev made 14 full overseas work trips during the first three years of her term, amounting to roughly 100 days abroad — more than three months in total.
The figures do not include travel during 2026, including her current trip to Morocco on the eve of the airport crisis.
Her travel increased steadily over the three-year period. In 2023, Regev made three work trips, visiting Morocco, Georgia and Mexico and spending a combined 26 to 28 days abroad.
In 2024, she made five trips involving India, Sri Lanka, France, Thailand, Hungary and Azerbaijan, spending between 31 and 40 days overseas.
In 2025, Regev made six full trips, in addition to a trip that began in December, with destinations including Morocco, Germany, Hungary, Cyprus, Greece, the United States and the United Arab Emirates. She spent a total of 43 to 45 days abroad that year, not including the portion of the December trip that extended into 2026.
The scrutiny of Regev’s travel comes as Ben Gurion Airport struggles with severe disruptions that stranded thousands of passengers Thursday, threw flight schedules into disarray and left rows of baggage piled across terminal floors.
Throughout the day, the Israel Airports Authority, which operates Ben Gurion, issued several statements accusing its workers’ union of causing deliberate “work disruptions.”
But Pinchas Idan, chairman of the Airports Authority workers’ union, denied that a planned strike had taken place. He instead blamed a severe staffing shortage, saying his repeated warnings about inadequate manpower had been ignored.
Regev and Idan are both members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
“Following the wild and illegal strike at the airport, which harmed the country’s citizens and damaged the economy, Prime Minister Netanyahu instructed that Pinchas Idan, chairman of the Airports Authority workers’ union, be expelled from Likud membership,” the party said.
Shortly before 1 p.m. Thursday, Airports Authority management said it was “dealing with work disruptions, under instructions from the workers’ union, which are affecting operational activity and service to the traveling public.”
Ben Gurion Airport's Terminal 1
Management called on employees to “immediately cease any action that could harm regular operations and restore full activity.”
“The authority views with great severity any deliberate action that could harm the traveling public and the proper operation of Ben Gurion Airport, particularly during a period of heavy summer traffic and high levels of activity,” it said.
The authority later announced that because of what it described as union-directed disruptions, airport operations would be reduced beginning at 2 p.m., eventually leading to a complete halt in arriving flights. Departures were to continue gradually according to an updated schedule.
Operations began resuming gradually shortly before 3 p.m., but the disruption continued and thousands of passengers remained affected.
Union chief: ‘We did not stop working’
Idan rejected the Airports Authority’s account and insisted there had been no strike.
“They can’t just say ‘strike’ and make up stories because everyone wants to cover themselves,” he said. “In June, I sent a letter saying we were short-staffed, and then they said, ‘There’s no shortage, there are Americans, there’s Greece’ — fairy tales.”
Ben Gurion Airport's Terminal 1
He said baggage handlers could not reasonably be expected to work 13-hour shifts in the summer heat.
“What do you want, for people to collapse?” Idan said.
He argued that employees had simply completed their scheduled shifts rather than deliberately stopping work.
“Everyone says there’s no manpower shortage,” he said. “Come on, I’ll give you a tour and you tell me whether it’s normal for a baggage handler to start at 3 a.m. and finish at 3 p.m.”
“We didn’t stop working,” Idan added. “The morning shift started at 3 a.m. and finished at noon. At 1 p.m., the afternoon shift went back to work as usual. All the baggage handlers are working. They finished nine hours and went home. They’re entitled to that.”