Overview
- A sudden work‑to‑rule action on Thursday shut check‑in and baggage handling at Ben‑Gurion, forcing a revised flight schedule from about 2:00 p.m. and leaving disruptions that carried into the next morning.
- Thousands of travelers faced long waits and disrupted journeys as many departures were delayed and some aircraft left without passengers’ checked luggage.
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered proceedings to suspend Pinchas Idan from the Likud and senior ministers instructed the Israel Airports Authority to seek labor‑court intervention against the workers’ committee.
- Officials and unions offer competing accounts: the IAA says the slowdown was ordered by the workers’ committee, the Histadrut’s transport union denies any order and blames chronic understaffing, and IAA officials say the action may originally have targeted Transportation Minister Miri Regev’s flight — a claim the workers’ chair rejects.
- The Finance Ministry put the immediate economic damage at about NIS 25–30 million, investigators and sanctions reviews are under way, and the disruption underscored how brief labor actions can ripple through a hub that handles roughly 100,000 passengers and 600 flights a day in summer.