El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) management and the airline's pilots' committee are each campaigning to attract public sympathy.
After the pilots' committee warned today that management was planning to "needlessly" cancel Flight 007 to New York, and claimed that no fewer than six pilots had agreed to make the flight, management published an extraordinary announcement describing several attempts to schedule pilots for the flight, and the reasons each of them gave for refusing to fly.
"In contrast to the false announcement by El Al pilots," the El Al spokesman said, "flight 007 to New York was manned by a full team of four pilots, but one of them announced that he had become ill."
At this stage, El Al management states, "the company department for assigning crews followed the rule contacting pilots in order to man the flight." There follows what the company says is a list of the requests to the pilots and their answers.
"Pilot 1 - reported sick. Pilot 2 - refused to fly roundtrip. Pilot 3 - did not answer. Pilot 4 - failed to answer a number of times. Pilot 5 - refused last night, did not answer this morning. Pilot 6 - refused a full flight, agreed to fly only in one direction. Pilot 7 - refused to fly. Pilot 8 - did not answer. Pilot 9 - refused yesterday, did not answer this morning. Pilot 10 - was on standby, reported sick. Pilot 11 - should have flown under the agreement, reported sick. Pilot 12 - refused. Pilot 13 - did not answer. Pilot 14 - has not answered since yesterday evening.
Management nevertheless said, "In order to prevent the cancelation of flights and damage to passengers, the flight will leave on a leased airplane."
The dispute between El Al management and pilots was set off by the new Pilot Law set to take effect in May 2018. The law, which imposes restrictions on airlines and their pilots, is liable to affect the maximum number of flight hours for pilots per work year. The El Al pilots are seeking a pay rise, while management opposes any change in pay.
El Al today published online an appeal to its workers by CEO David Maimon. In the appeal, he said, "We have restrained ourselves, but no more. The disruptions have reached the point of no return, and are jeopardizing the living of the company's employees. I have decided to put an end to this immoral and uncontrolled behavior, which is harming the entire company. I demand that the pilots return to full work immediately."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 15, 2016
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