El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE:ELAL) management and the pilots committee have signed an agreement after weeks of negotiations, and an extension of the deadline for talks by the Labor Court. Under the terms of the agreement, the pilots will have their salaries gradually restored to pre-Covid levels by January 2023, according to the agreement signed in 2018. Their salaries had been cut by 31% in 2020, with a 38% cut for per diem allowances, as part of the airline's streamlining plan to survive the pandemic and the disruption caused to international travel.
It has also been agreed that the pilots will undergo training for flying El Al's fleet of Boeing 777s, which are being refurbished for long-haul flights such as to Thailand, having not flown since 2020. El Al has already sold tens of thousands of ticket for these flights on 777s over the summer and Jewish holiday periods.
The agreement signed between El Al's management and the pilots guarantees industrial quiet until 2026. In recent weeks, dozens of El Al flights, mainly to Europe, have been cancelled because pilots have called in sick.
El Al CEO Dina Ben Tal Ganancia said that the airline's management was doing everything within its powers to make things easier for passengers during these challenging times.
She said, "With the signing of the agreement, we are looking forward to all parts of El Al joining forces to cope together with the difficulties and global competition in the airline and tourism industry. Even though compared with international airlines, El Al has a very low rate of flight cancelations, we still always strive to reduce to a minimum the volume of cancelations."
The pilot's demand to be represented by a professional association, independent of the workers committee, which represents all El Al employees has not been agreed to at this stage.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 10, 2022.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.