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A painful decision that will affect thousands of employees at Ben Gurion Airport | Israel Hayom

12/18/2023, 9:52:03 AM

Highlights: About 1,000 employees of Ben Gurion Airport will have to go on unpaid leave. The decision was made because there is not enough work at the airport. It is not known when the employees will return to their jobs. The number of passengers at the Airport has risen in recent days. The airport is expected to open its second terminal in the next few weeks. The first one was opened in 2007. The second one is due to open in the summer of 2014. The third one will be opened in 2015.


First publication: This morning a call was held to employees of the Airports Authority who were informed that many of them will have to be placed on unpaid leave in about two weeks • As of now, it is not known how long they will have to go on unpaid leave, about 600 employees, about 1,000 more will have to cut their jobs and the manpower at Ben Gurion Airport will be reduced by about 50%

The number of passengers at Ben Gurion Airport has begun to rise in recent days, but it is still far from the days we knew before the war period. The Airports Authority held a conversation with the employees this morning in which they were informed of the decision to put about 600 of them on unpaid leave, about 1,000 more will have to be reduced to about 75% of their positions, and about 1,000 more are currently in the reserves, not manning their jobs, but they will not be harmed in terms of their employment conditions.

The employees who will be placed on unpaid leave or whose jobs will be cut are from various departments in the Airports Authority, including handling, sorting, security and other departments responsible for operating Israel's main airport. In normal times, there are about 4,600 employees at Ben Gurion Airport, but now, after the decision was made, only about 3,000 will remain, and as stated, about 1,000 of them will be reduced to part-time jobs only.

Passenger numbers have been rising lately, Photo: Yossi Zeliger

In a conversation with Pinchas Idan, chairman of the Airports Authority workers' committee, he says: "We had to take this step because there is not enough work for everyone, and we hope that we will be able to bring everyone back as soon as possible. We are talking about employees who were recruited in 2022-2023 and at the moment it is not known when, it can take a month and it can take six months, let's hope it will be as quickly as possible. We made sure that those on unpaid leave would receive payment from the National Insurance Institute, and hopefully we would know better days."

In a conversation with airport workers who received the message, they tell Israel Hayom: "I have a family, it's hard and stressful, we don't know when they'll put us back to work. We will get something from the National Insurance Institute, but it's not like working and earning a decent living, a very difficult decision."

In a conversation with employees who stayed to work, they say: "This decision hurts beyond the fact that our friends are on unpaid leave, it will greatly affect us, all the work will fall on those who remain, and I hope we will meet it, because soon foreign companies are expected to return and it may not be simple."

Ben Gurion Airport did not respond to a request for comment

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