joshwex90

Unless they reach a payment plan with the government that allows them to pay it off over a nice period of time. However, if the government were to simply impound an aircraft and auction it off, how would the USA respond? It could jeopardize LY (as a reactionary move)

ELY001

This situation has nothing to do with governments or diplomacy. It is a private contracts based legal matter resolved in the civil Court of a sovereign nation (Israel). The United States government has no business and never has used its diplomatic clout to have the sovereign civil courts of another nation vacate a judgement, based on local contracts law, on behalf of a private American non-governmental enterprise.

Having the US government use its diplomatic clout in this situation would be akin to the Israeli government trying to use its diplomatic clout to force the vacation of a civil judgement against an Israeli company in the USA. Both scenarios will likely never happen and the results would be the same; nothing.

Which brings us back to the issue at hand. American Airlines needs to pay up what is owed to former TLV based TWA employees, as per the Israeli Court's judgement, or stop flying to TLV when their merger with US goes through.

NYTA

Not true. The AA that will emerge from bankruptcy will be a different company than the pre-bankruptcy company having been reorganized under chapter 11 and post merger with US. Israeli courts can't randomly apply their laws to a different US entity just because it has the same name.

craz

Just watch them. Any Countrys Courts can do as they please. Just as the US FAA put TLV down to a Cat2 = LY cant add Destinations in the US. What does LY have to do with the Airport? And if it was so bad why didnt they stop US,DL & CO/UA from flying into/outof TLV?

The Israeli courts can do as they please. Now lets say you are 1000% correct. Then after all is said and done they will have to release any aircraft that might have been seized, but that can drag on for who knows how long, meanwhile they will have at least 1 plane sitting doing nothing. I highly doubt AA will want that, w/o a clear "no plane can be seized' bye bye to US/AA and TLV

J_Fleish

I feel TLV with the new AA will all depend on how profitable the US PHL-TLV route is if it is as profitable as I am constantly hearing I can only see AA adding flights to TLV. Don't forget TWA was an asset purchase and not a merger even though the Israeli courts ruled it as one. Also with new managment running AA and Doug Parker has been keen on TLV even stating he wanted to add a second PHL-TLV flight. Time will tell what will happen with the new AA and TLV but I personally would not be surprise to see this go either way.

TWA884

It was not the Tel Aviv airport that was downgraded to Category 2, it was the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority.

From the FAA Press Release:
And the IATA Press Release:

craz

My pt was the US lowered the status of Israel, yet it didnt prevent DL,US,or CO/UA from flying into or out of TLV. Nor for LY to fly to/from the US.It did prevent LY from adding any more destinations in the US as long as ICAA was at a Cat 2. What does LY have to do wth the ICAA = just as The US can decide on its own what it deems the ICAA to be , Israel or Israeli Courts can also decdie how they see things that are done concerning US corps

Personally Id be very surprised if AA will be allowed to fly in w/o its plane being Held. Unless The Israeli Courts rule that anything AA can not be seize in order to pay off TWs re:AMRs debt that it left. Then even if the Courts say no seizure, why oh why do I feel that the Union will make sure the planes bags and cargo arent off loaded or done extremely slowly, etc etc etc

If I was US/AA the only way Id send a plane is if Everyone agreed no seizure or job action and The Israeli Courts backtracked on their call from yrs ago.That will only be done if theres an agreement on what is owed and payment is made. No agreement or payment say goodbye to the plane that lands there or is on the ground when US offically becomes AA

NYTA

Before an Israeli judge will rule to impound an aircraft there will be months if not years of court fights before it happens. Don't forget that in Israel, in order to sue for a large amount of money, the person suing has to put up 1.25% of the amount they are suing for before the court will hear their case. That's a pretty significant amount of cash if they are suing for enough money to try to impound a plane. Considering that US already has assets in the country, if I were them, and believed that I had a case, I'd sue US the day the deal closed with AA. But again, I don't think they have a case.

In the rare case that a judge orders the plane impounded, you can bet that it becomes a State Dept. issue and a phone call to Bibi from the ambassador immediately at which point it will likely be worked out on a diplomatic level.

TWA884

The status has to do with oversight of airlines operations and maintenance by the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority. El Al is regulated by the ICAA, DL, US and CO/UA are not. That's why El Al's operations were affected by the Category 2 status and the American carriers were not.

As far as whether the new AA will fly to Israel, that question is best left for experts in International conflicts of law and Israel's recognition of foreign judgments.

Here are a couple of articles:

craz

Well AA till now didnt fly in, I could be wrong but I imagine it didnt want its plane to be seized and have to wait as the case worked its way thru The Israeli Court system.

Im sure Dougie knows all about this and will decide if he wants to chance a seizure of a plane once US is AA, unless he gets something in writing that a plane wont be allowed to be seized. But he wont have any guarantees that the workers @ TLV wont imploy any actions on their own, if he gets such a guarantee and the Courts prevent any seizures then US/AA will contiue flying in.

Right now a Seizure Order for anything AA is still in affect, once AA took over TWA. So that would have to be thrown out, otherwise good-bye AA/US plane, unless The Courts say AA/TW yes, but US/AA/TW is different

But then The US can also say LY cant expand beyond where they fly to now on their metal.Which just might suit LY.

TWA884

First of all, it is a lien, not a seizure order.

Secondly, according to the US based attorney for the TWA Israeli employees, the lien excludes airplanes.

craz

I had my flight CXed a few days after TW stopped the TLV route, ended up flying back on DL

I can only tell you what I was told at the TW mgrs I knew at the time in Israel.That TW Cxed the JFK-TLV flight saying it was MX since there still was a plane on the ground @ TLV and TW mgmt felt their plane would be seized if their true intentions were mad known = cutting out of town in the middle of the night leaving all its debts behind. Now seizure and enforcing a lien is the samething where by TW would not have had use of its plane. TW didnt shut down when it pulled its TLV flights, if anything it kept flying everywhere else

Once AA took over TW except for the TLV route, it was said if AA flew in the plane would be held. Since AA didnt include TLV and made it a point to exclude it , there was talk they might have started up flying in until The Israeli Courts basically said we dont care how the US applys its laws.To us AA purchased TW and that includes the TLV route. Now what if anything would have happened if AA flew its plane to TLV we wont ever know, simply due to an AA plane never yet has flown the route.

I suspect that before it allows either a US metal plane or a AA metal plane to fly in to TLV, that they will have gotten a legal rendering if its plane or what part of AA can be Held to offset the debts of TW that still hasnt been paid.This is once US & AA are Legally 1 company, I believe that today they are 2 different companys and thats why USs plane arent being Held

Time will tell what will be, but the fact is The Israeli Courts did say AA stuff can be held and The Court didnt accept that AA purchased TW except for TLV and AA has never flown into TLV with its own metal. Maybe some sort of a settlement will be agrred upon = AA metal will fly in or maybe no settlement and once its 1 company PHL-TLV goes bye-bye. Right now its a guessing game

TWA884

Somehow, I trust the attorney's analysis of the situation better than that of an employee who has a stake in the outcome of the legal wranglings.

Everything that I have read seems to indicate that the lien was issued only against TWA Israeli based assets.

Here are links to a couple of news items about the court's order:
Can you please direct me to a place where I can read the court's actual ruling (Hebrew is fine). Again, I don't quite trust a lay person's interpretation of the judge's order.

Agreed.

Again, I'd like to read the judge's own words to determine if that was her order.

craz

even TWAs spokesperson said they did what they did in order to avoid a seizure of their plane/s http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo...d.main/429611/

It will take me some to try and find where they said AA can be held. But at the time of TLV being shut down TLV was, supposingly TWs most profitable route. Of cause all the Debts might have axed that for AA. TW had its own employees on the ground both in the various offices throughout Israel as well as @ TLV. They didnt use Rent a crew and have its own fleet of equipment as well, including its own stair-trucks although they were so old TW left it all behind, probably would have cost them more to ship/fly that junk out of there

Personally I would like to see AA fly in, as long as its not on 767s.Got a large stash of AA miles and after the merge it will be even larger with my stash of US miles. Plus with cpm running close to .015 per eqm I Welcome anything to get that down.Plus with LX being the only non-US/CA Carrier using widebodys (besides LY) I welcome AA with open arms. As I already said Im not counting on it happening if anything I see US pulling out (not as TW did) but very close to when they will be 1 company, unless they know 100% that nothing will be Held and whatever TW owed + Interest they wont be accountable for

TWA884

That does not add anything to what I had quoted above:
I still would like to read the judge's orders issuing the preliminary injunction and later imposing the liens.

Can you please provide a credible source, i.e., not former employees involved in a dispute over wages, severance pay and pensions, that the TLV route was profitable? Every independent source which I had read indicated that the TLV route at best broke even and most likely was a money loser due to a huge overhead - over 100 local employees to service a single daily flight - and Carl Icahn's Karabu ticket agreement.

I knew many of the TWA Israeli employees, including the last two station managers. I would like to see nothing short of them becoming whole. However, I don't foresee that happening. Most of TWA's US based employees fared much worse than their Israeli counterparts.