Multiple El Al flights to and from Europe canceled amid wage dispute

All El Al flights from Europe to Israel, as well as three flights leaving Israel for Europe, are canceled amid an ongoing wage dispute between the largest Israeli airline and its pilots union.

Pilots are objecting to a wage agreement according to which aging pilots receive just 34 percent of their full wages between the ages of 65 and 67. International aviation rules forbid airline pilots from flying international routes after age 65, but Israeli pilots don’t start receiving their pensions until the country’s retirement age of 67. How to compensate long-time pilots during that two-year gap has been the subject of an ongoing skirmish between El Al’s management and its pilots union.

Overnight Saturday, the airline said it had to cancel three outgoing flights to Boston, New York and Moscow. Channel 10 reports that El Al is now adding to that list the 5:15 p.m. flight to London, the 5:25 p.m. flight to Madrid and the 5:30 p.m. flight to Warsaw.

The planes’ grounding in Israel is causing a cascade of cancellations down the flight schedule.