EL AL

[sam dilly]

All EL AL flights have been suspended due to a crew strike.
Website says the strike is indefinite.
All information desks at TLV abandoned.
Tel Aviv airport staff joining in sympathy tomorrow, and closing the airport indefinitely as well.

El Al not even offering a cup of tea to delayed passengers, and the few staff at TLV telling pax that no hotel bills will be covered.
literally 10's of 1000's including many Brits are literally stranded.

This plus the Lufthansa strike, is really making this Monday a bad hair day !

[eu01]

Striking against the competition apparently. Open skies is good for tourism, good for passengers, not necessarily good for the preservation of quite a few lucrative jobs in the industry (under the patronage until now).

[crewmeal]

Then lets hope the likes of Ryanair find an alternative airport to operate out of. Jerusalem? Haifa? Most tourists can't wait to get out of TLV and explore the Holy Land proper.

[No_Speed_Restriction]

Jerusalem?........Closed (proximity to west bank)
Haifa? .........Too short
Sde Dov?......Too short

Only 3 available are Ben Gurion, Ovda and Eilat. Hopefully one of the routes will be from Paphos as Cyprus Airways are charging a small fortune for such a small journey from LCA; a good percentage is to fund a fuel surcharge and some other "taxes".

The government have now decided to subsidize 97.5% (according to sources) of the Israeli airlines' security requirements.

[Aksai Oiler]

There are plenty of long runways in Israel - unfortunately they are run by the IDF. Ovda is the prime example when Eilat was deemed unsuitable for larger traffic (although I have seen with my own eyes a Boeing 767 land there); a small civilian terminal was built to accomodate the holiday traffic (largely charters)

Nevatim was mooted some years ago as an alternative to Ben Gurion, for cargo flights

HFA is too small, and has little room for expansion, if I remember correctly. What about allowing civilian flights ex Ramat David? Or even Megiddo, although some investment would be needed to bring the airport up to modern standards.

In reality this is all pie in the sky, Israel is relatively small; and maybe Ben Gurion is sufficient. They could probably use T2 or even T1 (if they still exist) as a dedicated LCC facility.

[AtomKraft]

I've been to Ovda.

If you're looking for the definition of 'in the middle of nowhere', you'll find it here.

[Espada III]

As a regular traveller to TLV I can advise that Ben Gurion is not yet at capacity and has very little transfer traffic. The old terminal 1 is used for check-in for Loco flights inc EZY and domestic flights.

The main union in Israel is very strong and calls strikes 'at the drop of a hat'. Current dispute centres around the desire of the government to reduce air fares by opening up the skies to competition. There is already a great deal of competition, but prices are too high compared with routes to similar destinations (e.g. Cyprus).

However more competition will destroy El Al which has high costs and little imagination about its sources of income. An example is MAN - TLV. El Al used to fly this in the 1990s but abandoned it when it realised there was business to be had from the former USSR and the 500,000 immigrants who arrived from there into Israel between 1991 and 1995. However we now have at four flights per week from MAN allegedly rising to five with EZY from summer 2014. Many passengers would be happy to fly El Al with the certainty of kosher food on board, some IFE, luggage allowance etc. IF it was £50 per ticket more expensive most of us would pay that (I would and some would many of my friends who also travel this route).

[pee]

And in the meantime:The strike at Israel's main international airport is ending following an agreement reached between the government and El Al, the Finance Ministry announced Monday evening.

The government has agreed to cover 97.5 percent of the airline's security costs. The deal was reached after El Al employees understood that "the Open Skies policy was a fait accompli," the ministry stated.

Until now the government covered 80 percent of El Al's security costs.
The key question: who would pay the security costs on behalf of no frill airlines? Themselves? In such a case, even if Ovda looks optimal for Ryanair (it does), that would be tough for them, I suppose.

[Espada III]

Remember that El Al has increased security outside Israel which other airlines do not have. In Israel that increased level of security is standard and presumably picked up in the airport charges per passenger or by the Government. Irrelevant which airport you are flying from/to inside the country.

The real problem is that El Al is a legacy airline with too many staff and too few routes. Its workforce was drawn from the usual pool of people in the know (protekzia as it is known) and with the inability to reduce numbers sufficiently.