Chaos at BG airport
Nov 2, 2006, 8:14 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 1,556
Chaos at BG airport
Just arrived from FRA in TLV (on LH). All ground staff in TLV are on strike. The station manager had a lot of trouble operating the airbridge!
Bags are delayed 6-7 hours, though no-one knows for sure. All LY flights seem to be very heavily delayed (up to 6 hours).
I didn't both staying at the airport to wait for bags...
Bags are delayed 6-7 hours, though no-one knows for sure. All LY flights seem to be very heavily delayed (up to 6 hours).
I didn't both staying at the airport to wait for bags...
Nov 3, 2006, 1:08 am
#2
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Israel
Programs: Elal Silver, AirCanada Aeroplan, AA AAdvantage, KLM Flying Blue, Continental OnePass, Delta Skymiles
Posts: 529
Originally Posted by 2035
Just arrived from FRA in TLV (on LH). All ground staff in TLV are on strike. The station manager had a lot of trouble operating the airbridge!
Bags are delayed 6-7 hours, though no-one knows for sure. All LY flights seem to be very heavily delayed (up to 6 hours).
I didn't both staying at the airport to wait for bags...
Bags are delayed 6-7 hours, though no-one knows for sure. All LY flights seem to be very heavily delayed (up to 6 hours).
I didn't both staying at the airport to wait for bags...
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...ticle/ShowFull
-Hank
Nov 4, 2006, 5:38 pm
#3
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Posts: 39
Ben Gurion Airport was indeed a mess on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They were loading 1 El Al flight per hour. At 5:30pm on Thursday, they finally released the last flight from the morning, then they started working on the afternoon flights.
The foreign carrier(BA, LH) were not taking any luggage with them, that is why they were able to leave more of less on time.
El Al was not equipped to handle this situation. The strike involved the temporay baggage loaders. El Al should have brought in anyone to load and unload luggage on the planes. Since they could not handle that, their flights were delayed.
The foreign carrier(BA, LH) were not taking any luggage with them, that is why they were able to leave more of less on time.
El Al was not equipped to handle this situation. The strike involved the temporay baggage loaders. El Al should have brought in anyone to load and unload luggage on the planes. Since they could not handle that, their flights were delayed.
Nov 4, 2006, 6:26 pm
#4
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Midwest
Programs: AA, UA, DL, LUV, SPG, HHonors, Avis, Hertz
Posts: 3,033
Several years ago one of my best friends had a meeting in Israel (in Kiryat Gat). He spent a couple of days in France visiting family he had never met, and then went to the airport for his flight to TLV on AF.
I wish I could remember the entire story, but the short version is that when he got to the airport, he was told that they couldn't get him to TLV b/c of a strike. There was some indication that LY flights were getting through, but that they couldn't get him there on AF.
A few other things happened in between, but he ultimately decided he HAD to get to TLV. He was an associate at a draconian law firm in those days, and after numerous all-nighters of work and such, he had been waiting some ridiculous amount of time to get this 'vacation'. He knew that if he didn't get to TLV then for a few days, it could be at least another year or more. (The meeting was just an excuse; he wanted to be in Israel for a bit in the worst way.) This was after the peace treaty with Jordan was signed, so he figured he'd take a flight to Amman and somehow get across the Allenby Bridge into Israel.
So, my friend gets to the gate and sees that it's NOT a nonstop to Amman - it stops in Damascus. Suffice it to say that my pal is Jewish and has a lot of stamps in his passport from prior travel to TLV (including one noting that he was there for a year as a volunteer). He gulped hard, thought about it for a few minutes and decided to get on the plane.
As you can imagine, the stopover in Damascus was quite scary for him, though of course nothing actually happened. It was a crazy experience, but he finally got to Amman. It was nighttime, he got in the cab, and headed straight for the Allenby crossing into Israel.
All this time now passed, I'm not sure if the bridge was just closed for the night (one would perhaps expect?) or not, but he seemed to think that the Jordanians were telling him that the strike in Israel was somehow slowing things down, and that the crossing wouldn't open until the morning. My friend, having overcome so many hurdles to this point, figured he might as well just lay down on the ground and sleep near the gate until then. That was until he heard what sounded like wild dogs yelping.
So, he took a cab back to Amman, stayed in a hotel, went back to the bridge in the morning, crossed over and took a cab all the way to Kiryat Gat.
Perhaps not as 'crazy' a story to many of you intrepid globetrotters as it was to me. There's no way I would have been on that plane, though.
I wish I could remember the entire story, but the short version is that when he got to the airport, he was told that they couldn't get him to TLV b/c of a strike. There was some indication that LY flights were getting through, but that they couldn't get him there on AF.
A few other things happened in between, but he ultimately decided he HAD to get to TLV. He was an associate at a draconian law firm in those days, and after numerous all-nighters of work and such, he had been waiting some ridiculous amount of time to get this 'vacation'. He knew that if he didn't get to TLV then for a few days, it could be at least another year or more. (The meeting was just an excuse; he wanted to be in Israel for a bit in the worst way.) This was after the peace treaty with Jordan was signed, so he figured he'd take a flight to Amman and somehow get across the Allenby Bridge into Israel.
So, my friend gets to the gate and sees that it's NOT a nonstop to Amman - it stops in Damascus. Suffice it to say that my pal is Jewish and has a lot of stamps in his passport from prior travel to TLV (including one noting that he was there for a year as a volunteer). He gulped hard, thought about it for a few minutes and decided to get on the plane.
As you can imagine, the stopover in Damascus was quite scary for him, though of course nothing actually happened. It was a crazy experience, but he finally got to Amman. It was nighttime, he got in the cab, and headed straight for the Allenby crossing into Israel.
All this time now passed, I'm not sure if the bridge was just closed for the night (one would perhaps expect?) or not, but he seemed to think that the Jordanians were telling him that the strike in Israel was somehow slowing things down, and that the crossing wouldn't open until the morning. My friend, having overcome so many hurdles to this point, figured he might as well just lay down on the ground and sleep near the gate until then. That was until he heard what sounded like wild dogs yelping.
So, he took a cab back to Amman, stayed in a hotel, went back to the bridge in the morning, crossed over and took a cab all the way to Kiryat Gat.
Perhaps not as 'crazy' a story to many of you intrepid globetrotters as it was to me. There's no way I would have been on that plane, though.
Nov 13, 2006, 11:31 am
#5
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: NYC
Programs: CO - silver, dl plat, spg plat, Marriot plat
Posts: 470
I have a friend from the army and he was finally on his way back to israel after a year long trip to india. He was on Jordanian Airways , and enroute a decision was made to stop in Saudi Arabia. Quite scary for him as he was on an Israeli passport and only spoke hebrew. He got through it ok