El Al management, pilots end labor dispute

Long haul flights on Israel’s national airline could get shorter after an agreement was struck Monday to end a two-week strike over pilots allegedly deliberately taking longer routes to earn bonuses.

The strike caused the cancellation of around 15 flights and led to serious delays for El Al passengers across the globe.

But a deal was expected to be penned Monday after an agreement between El Al and the pilots, trade union Histadrut said.

It was triggered by a management decision to end a practice which enabled pilots not to have to work on a return flight, instead traveling back to Israel in business class, El Al said.

Management also accused pilots of deliberately extending the flight time between Tel Aviv and New York to over 12 hours so as to be eligible for a bonus.

A journey that in 2006 took an average of 11 hours and 30 minutes now takes 12 hours and 20 minutes on average, the Haaretz daily newspaper said.

The agreement negotiated by the Histadrut trade union and expected to be signed Monday would see pilots stop extending journey times and shortening their stays abroad for long-distance flights.

In exchange they will get a 7.35 percent raise and a pledge that management would no longer charter planes from foreign companies, as they did during the strike.

“This agreement will put an end to the crisis and management and employees will cooperate to make the company operate in a completely normal way,” Avi Nisenkorn, secretary general of Histadrut said in a statement.

El Al’s sales for the first nine months of the year were $1.578 billion, a level comparable to that of the same period in 2015, while gross earnings decreased slightly in the same period to $322 million from $364 million the previous year, according to the company.