A week after severe disruptions brought Ben Gurion Airport close to a standstill, Israel’s main international airport is preparing for another peak travel day, with more than 100,000 passengers expected to pass through on Thursday.
This time, however, airport operations appeared calmer, with staff, including administrative employees who helped baggage handlers earlier in the week, working to prevent a repeat of the scenes in which tens of thousands of passengers were stranded in long lines.
Congestion at Ben Gurion Airport last week
(Photo: Jack GUEZ / AFP)
The disruption began last Thursday, when a three-hour gap opened between baggage-handling shifts. Departures and arrivals were almost completely halted and the airport struggled to function. The Israel Airports Authority said employees were on strike, while workers said the real problem was a severe manpower shortage. Although Thursday began without major new disruptions, data from the past week show just how widespread the delays have been.
Between Aug. 19 and Aug. 25, Ben Gurion Airport recorded 1,850 departures. Only 6.7% left within 15 minutes of their scheduled time, the threshold generally not counted as a delay. The worst congestion was recorded at Terminal 3, which handled 1,465 departures during the period, compared with 385 at Terminal 1. Average departure delays at Terminal 3 reached 94 minutes, compared with 75 minutes at Terminal 1. In other words, the terminal handling the vast majority of traffic also suffered the longer delays.
Israeli airlines remained the busiest operators at the airport. El Al recorded 610 departures during the week, with an average delay of 69 minutes. Israir operated 284 departures, with delays averaging 80 minutes. Arkia recorded 266 departures and an average delay of 116 minutes, making it the second-most delayed airline at Ben Gurion during the week. Blue Bird Airways topped the list, with an average delay of 2 hours and 40 minutes across 183 departures.
Part of that disruption was attributed to unusually heavy air traffic in Greece, one of the airline’s main destinations. TUS Airways ranked third among the most delayed carriers, with an average delay of 108 minutes.
At the other end of the ranking, Ethiopian Airlines was the most punctual carrier during the week, with an average delay of 33 minutes across 25 departures. AirBaltic followed with an average delay of 42 minutes, while Austrian Airlines averaged 43 minutes. Larnaca was the most popular destination for passengers leaving Ben Gurion over the past week, with 130 departures, about 7% of all outbound flights. Addis Ababa was the most punctual destination, with flights delayed by an average of 33 minutes. Dubai and Abu Dhabi followed, each with average delays of 47 minutes.
Tbilisi had the longest average delays, at 149 minutes, followed by Heraklion at 142 minutes, Barcelona at 134 minutes, Corfu at 127 minutes and Mykonos at 115 minutes.