State-owned El Al Israel Airlines [ELAL.UL] said on Tuesday it would implement a sweeping cost-saving plan as it responds to a sharp downturn in tourism caused by a continuing Palestinian uprising.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010424/l24306023.html

The retrenchment of El Al due to the decline of traffic to Israel will not affect the airline's American service after all. The carrier now says it will retain all of its North American routes, including flights to Tel Aviv from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto.

From what I know, only the route to NYC will not be touched. Direct flights to YYZ and ORD will be minimized or canceled. Flights to LAX and MIA which are not direct at most will be minimized as well.

A report that El Al is planning to cut 500 jobs has caught the workers by surprise, according to Michael Kochavi, head of the union which represents the airline's workers.
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/05/17/Business/Business.26310.html

Route cut schedule (as published in an Israeli paper):
Flights to Manchester, UK will be terminated June 14th.
Flights to Simprofol, Russia - June 24th.
Flights to Copenhagen, Dennemark and St. Petersburg, Russia will be terminated Sept. 1st.
Flights to Nairoby, Kenya, Minsk and Dneyproptrovsk, Russia - Nov. 1st.
Currently ElAl operates a twice weekly flight to Manchester, and once weekly to all the rest.

Originally posted by apirchik:
Direct flights to ORD will be minimized or canceled.

Any more info on flights to ORD?

Container traffic is down in once- congested seaports. Banks have reported steep first-quarter losses, sending the stock exchange into a tailspin. Israel's national airline, El Al, overbooked a year ago and ordering new planes, is now canceling routes, selling jumbo jets and laying off hundreds of employees.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/06/world/06ISRA.html

The continued unrest in the Middle East has nearly destroyed Israel's tourism business and El Al (800-223-6700 has been scrambling for ways to get pax back on board. Its latest offer: $975 one-way business class fares from New York/JFK - Tel Aviv. Among other restrictions, the deal requires a roundtrip purchase for travel before September 3, 2001.

Jacobs said he outlined his plan to finally get the long talked-about privatization of El Al off the ground to Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh earlier on Wednesday.

``El Al is not in the best conditions,'' Jacobs said. ``If we don't privatize it soon its future looks very problematic.''

A tourism slump to Israel in the wake of a more than nine-month-old Palestinian uprising has hurt El Al. Israel's national carrier lost an estimated $109 million in 2000 and posted a net loss of $50.56 million in the first quarter.

It has since begun a series of cost-cutting measures, including layoffs and route and flight cutbacks.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010711/bs/airlines_israel_elal_dc_1.html

El Al to lay off 240 workers

El Al plans to lay off some 240 employees by the end of the year, due to the slowdown in global air traffic, with some 100 redundancies to take place as soon as the October holiday season ends, El Al CEO David Hermesh said in a closed meeting with airline executives on Yom Kippur Eve.


http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=78437&contrassID=2&subContrassID=2&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by apirchik:
Route cut schedule (as published in an Israeli paper):
Flights to Manchester, UK will be terminated June 14th.
Flights to Simprofol, Russia - June 24th.
Flights to Copenhagen, Dennemark and St. Petersburg, Russia will be terminated Sept. 1st.
Flights to Nairoby, Kenya, Minsk and Dneyproptrovsk, Russia - Nov. 1st.
Currently ElAl operates a twice weekly flight to Manchester, and once weekly to all the rest.</font>

It's odd that they are cutting TLV-CPH while SK are doing the same.

I came through CPH last night and noticed a fair number of Orthodox Jews (blackhats, beards etc). While they may have not been going to TLV (and folk going to TLV may not be Orthodox Jews) you'd think that there would be enough traffic on the route to keep at leats one carrier going.

Stephen

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by sjharte:
It's odd that they are cutting TLV-CPH while SK are doing the same.
</font>

El Al have cut this line a while ago, and still SK didn't have enough traffic appearently. A lot of the european carriers take traffic to all around the world from TLV and I guess that the time of the SK flight and lack of connections has a lot to do with this.

Israel Tourism Plunges to 10-Year Low

http://www.msnbc.com/news/692166.asp?0dm=C15OL

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum109/HTML/002784.html