IAA chair said looking to fire airport labor union chief over Thursday’s impromptu strike

Israel Airports Authority chair Yiftah Ron-Tal is seeking to fire the head of the Airport Workers Union, Pinchas Idan, Channel 12 reported Saturday, after Thursday’s two-hour wildcat strike at Ben Gurion International Airport caused chaos on what would have been the busiest travel day of 2026.

Ron-Tal is attempting to convene the IAA board to oust Idan, the report said, and is seeking legal advice on how to handle the issue.

Idan, 70, is already facing the wrath of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Friday said he had submitted an official request to expel him from his Likud party. The strike caused extensive delays and flight cancellations as check-in counters and baggage handling stations were left unmanned on Thursday afternoon.

Idan’s term as union chief was originally set to end in May 2026, but was extended, reportedly amid pressure on the IAA from senior Likud politicians. Idan is a member of the Likud Central Committee who has reportedly signed up thousands of people as Likud members. (He ran for the Knesset with Likud in 2019 but was told he could not do so and retain his job, and so he abandoned that bid.)

The Channel 12 report also alleged that the IAA is set to fire a senior administrative aide to Idan who was the subject of a Civil Service Commission inquiry for allegedly clocking in at the airport for over a decade without actually working.

A report from the news outlet earlier this year also claimed that numerous relatives of Idan were employed at the airport without actually working.

Idan has denied calling a strike of any kind, and instead blamed the turmoil on staffing shortages and decisions by the airport’s management.

To that end, Channel 12 reported, Idan submitted an appeal to Israel’s Labor Court on Saturday night alleging that the IAA has been breaching employees’ rights at the airport, including by requiring baggage handlers to routinely work 12-hour shifts, six days a week.

According to the television report, Idan asserts that the baggage handlers were exhausted on Thursday — when the airport was scheduled to be handling some 107,000 passengers on over 600 flights — and that he gave those who had been working for nine hours that day permission to stop work at the end of their scheduled shift, rather than continuing for overtime hours.

Channel 12 said it had confirmed that this was the case, and that it was Ben Gurion Airport management — under Ron-Tal and Ben Gurion Airport CEO Sharon Kedmi — who told airport staff, including at check-in, to stop work, since the airport could not function after some 12-20 baggage handlers went home. Luggage coming off planes and going onto planes was backing up, and the situation was unworkable.

The report said the airport management nonetheless blames Idan for the chaos, since the heavy workload in the later summer months is known, the shifts are routinely extended, and overtime is routinely paid.

It said Kedmi and Idan were due to meet on Thursday morning to discuss the issue amid the very high number of passengers using the airport in recent weeks, but that Idan did not turn up for the meeting and gave no advance warning that he would be allowing the baggage handlers to go home without doing their overtime hours, inevitably causing the airport shutdown.

The cost of the shutdown has been estimated at NIS 25-30 million ($8.3-10 million).