Behind the drama in recent days at Israel’s main gateway, Ben Gurion Airport - the claimed manpower shortage, strike threats, and cancelled meetings - lies a much more complicated story. In the past few years, wage costs have taken a growing slice of the revenue of the Israel Airports Authority, reaching 75% in the first quarter of this year.
The Israel Airports Authority’s financial statements reveal a structural failure that deepens from year to year, and explains why every request to for greater manpower becomes a tangled financial problem, and not just an operational one.
Is there really a shortage of workers?
Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Transport Miri Regev, and Ministry of Transport director general Moshe Ben Zaken, visited Ben Gurion Airport. In the course of the visit, as reported by the Israel Airports Authority, "A presentation was made to the prime minister of the operations of Ben Gurion Airport and the work of thousands of employees who work daily to ensure that the airport functions continuously in the summer season." But behind the bold statements, sources inform "Globes" that at that event the airport workers committee chairperson Pinchas Idan approached the minister of transport and brought up his demands concerning the employees. She referred him to the director general of the ministry, who arranged a meeting with Idan and the Airports Authority management for the following day. But Idan did not show up to the meeting, and the rest is history - a day of chaos for travelers.
If you ask Idan, there was never a strike. "No Italian strike and no planned sanctions," he wrote to the prime minister and the minister of transport. "For weeks, we warned again and again in every possible forum: the baggage handling system is critically short of manpower."
According to the workers committee, the airport’s workforce is short of 400-500 people across all divisions: 18 firefighters, 11 operators, 200-300 checking and security staff, 80 transport workers and 100 sorters. In addition, the committee claims, more than 100 employees are on military reserve duty, and dozens are absent because of long-term illness. The committee petitioned the Labor Court to shorten shifts officially from thirteen to nine hours.
Examination of the figures reveals a more complex picture. 2.6 million passengers are expected to pass through Ben Gurion Airport this August. Altogether, there are 978 baggage sorting and handling workers (permanent and temporary). In August 2019, more passengers passed through the airport, some 2.8 million, and there were 976 sorting and handling workers. The previous year, the number of passengers in August was 2.7 million, and the number of sorting and handling workers was 975. The workers committee says that over the years equipment has been added that makes more manpower necessary.
This summer, at Idan’s request, some 250 temporary workers were added, at a cost of NIS 15,000-20,000 each. According to a source familiar with the details, one of the disputes is over giving permanent status to those workers when the summer is over.
Negative cash flow
At any rate, in order to understand the discussion a little better, and the price that the Israel Airports Authority pays, we took a deeper dive into the financial statements and the numbers.
First of all, "Globes" has learned that between October 7 2023 and the end of June this year, the Authority had a negative cash flow of nearly NIS 2 billion.
In 2025, the Authority’s revenue, which is made up of fees from passengers, airlines, and commercial operations, was NIS 3.7 billion. On the expenditure side, NIS 1.9 billion went on wages and associated payments. Wage costs rose by NIS 218 million, because of recruitment of temporary workers, implementation of new labor agreements, and revision of the minimum wage. In short, wage costs represented 51.3% of the Authority’s revenue.
Wage costs were 16% higher than in 2024, when they totaled NIS 1.6 billion. Revenue that year was NIS 2.8 billion, such that wage costs represented 57% of it.
In 2019 too, before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, wage costs were NIS 1.6 billion, but in that year revenue totaled NIS 4.1 billion. In other words, wage costs as a percentage of revenue rose from 39% in 2019 to 51% in 2025. Last year, because of the decline in revenue, the Israel Airports Authority issued a NIS 500 million bond.
In the first quarter of 2026, wage costs rose 2% in comparison with the corresponding quarter of 2025, to NIS 477 million. Revenue, meanwhile, fell by 20% because of Operation Roaring Lion against Iran, to NIS 629 million, so that in the first quarter wage costs represented 75% of revenue.
According to estimates, the average gross wage of Israel Airports Authority workers is NIS 25,000 monthly. This is only an average, and workers in jobs such as baggage handling and security often earn much less.
Reform required
So far, the events of last Thursday have not led to any new agreements, other than that the Israel Airports Authority would announce that it continues to seek new employees. "After talks between the chairperson of the Israel Airports Authority, its CEO, and the workers committee chairperson, the employees fully returned to work. At the same time, it was agreed that a substantial effort would be made to increase the size of the workforce," the Authority’s statement said.
At the beginning of this week, the Israel Airports Authority reported that its management and the workers committee had concluded a joint meeting "out of responsibility to the traveling public and a commitment to restoring regular activity at Ben Gurion Airport." It was also decided that managers would temporarily join work shifts. The Israel Airports Authority also said that it was taking on additional workers in readiness for the Jewish holiday season.
With the Airports Authority hemorrhaging cash, however, the question arises how it is possible to resolve the situation in such a way that it will not be repeated in the future.
Besides the construction of additional airports, the assessment in the aviation industry is that comprehensive reform may be required, whereby the Israel Airports Authority will operate as a government company and not as a statutory corporation as at present. That would require it to meet much higher standards of transparency, and even to distribute an annual dividend to the state.
In a similar fashion to what has happened at Israel’s seaports, all the terminals would be privatized, and their operators would have contracts with the government company. In that situation, most airport workers would become employees of private operators.
Another strike on the way?
Meanwhile, all eyes are on this Thursday, the last Thursday in August, when some 100,000 passengers are expected to pass through Ben Gurion Airport. The airport’s management is bracing for the possibility of more disruptions, and it too knows that this incident cannot be allowed to drag on. Besides the tens of thousands of Israelis who will be inconvenienced, there are also dozens of foreign airlines that have resumed flying here in recent months after Operation Roaring Lion. If Ben Gurion Airport continues to be shut down once a week, it is doubtful whether we shall continue to see them in Israel.
The Israel Airports Authority stated in response: "There is no connection between the corporate structure and the efficiency of the Authority and/or the organizational structure. Changes are indeed required in the Authority’s operating model, and a move is currently being advanced led by the Authority’s council and in cooperation with the workers committees to examine and change the Authority’s operating model to adapt it to the current period."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 24, 2026.
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