After a contentious week between the El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) and the El Al Pilots Association, the parties are meeting in an attempt to reach understandings that will end the dispute.
Last week, El Al conducted a number of flights using leased airplanes and foreign crews brought to Israel from Spanish and Portuguese airlines. Last Wednesday, El Al flights left for New York and European destinations using leased planes, while one flight to Beijing was canceled because the pilots for the flight, two captains and a first officer, reported that they were ill.
The prolonged dispute concerning the employment terms for stewards involves a demand for a raise and clarification of rules for work hours. Pilots' monthly salaries average NIS 50,000, and captains earn an average of NIS 90,000 a month, plus $2,000 for room and board expenses. During the period of the dispute, the pilots' salaries soared, and are believed to have doubled.
El Al currently employs 530 pilots, 250 of whom are captains. The company recently hired 56 pilots, and 50 more were hired before October.
The pilots have to work 85 flight hours, and many of them work overtime, receiving time and a half pay for it. The main dispute concerns the cost-cutting measures El Al wants to implement in its employment of pilots. For example, on flights to distant destinations, international regulations stipulate three crew members in the cockpit, while four are actually being sent: two first officers and two captains. El Al is seeking to change this practice.
Flights have been disrupted, among other things because the pilots demanded shorter overseas stays on trans-Atlantic flights, meaning that they will return to Israel as inactive staff. This requires El Al to use twice as many crews: one for the flight out, and another for the return flight. The parties have now agreed temporarily halt the pilots' insistence on double pilot crews and El Al's use of leased airplanes.
In a letter sent at the end of last week, El Al Air Pilot Association chairman and pilot Nir Tzuk called on the pilots to fulfill the company's busy flight schedule, and reduce their demands for shortened overseas stays to a minimum, "despite our frayed tempers in recent days and the severe criticism of us in the media." He added that the pilots' request for flying teams in business class had been accepted. The understandings will be in force until agreements are reached.
The El Al Pilots Association said in response, "El Al pilots will continue their work in flying passengers, as they have always done, in the best and safest way, together with an Israeli staff, Israeli maintenance, and the Israeli flag on the airplane."
No response from El Al was available.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 6, 2016
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