El Al Israel national airlines grounded all planes today in a dispute with pilots who refused to fly more than eight hours per trip instead of the contractually set 12 hours.
A spokesman for the airline said it regarded the demand for a cut in hours and the delaying of a plane in Chicago as a wildcat strike. All planes and crews in airports abroad were ordered to return immediately to Israel.
The union of the crews reportedly demanded overtime pay for flight time over eight hours. The Histadrut, Israel’s Labor Federation, announced it was opposed to the demands, particularly after a committee for the crews rejected a proposal to arbitrate the dispute.
The dispute came to ahead yesterday when El Al pilots in charge of craft scheduled to take 140 members of a Zionist group from Chicago to Lydda demanded that they be given eight hours rest before starting their flight to Israel. The Chicago group, flown by the crew that started the action, finally arrived at Lydda Airport ten hours later than scheduled.
Passengers who had booked El Al Flights were transferred by the company today to planes belonging to other lines. At the request of El Al, a number of foreign airlines, including Belgium’s Sabena and the Irish Airways, sent craft here to pick up passengers, so that none was stranded.
(In New York, a company spokesman stated that through the cooperation of other international airlines, El Al has succeeded in honoring its commitments to all passengers booked. Arrangements have been made for special handling of passengers at points of departure as well as destination in order to insure minimum inconvenience to the public.)
Members of the Air Crew Committee alleged that the company had locked out its pilots who, arrived to work today on scheduled but found the planes grounded. The trade union department of Histadrut, the Israel Federation of Labor, has refused to have any contact with the Air Crew Committee, however, insisting that the crews return to work under conditions existing before the pilots made new demands on the company.
According to leaders of the Crew Committee, the pilots insisted not so much on higher pay as on safety precautions. The pilots say that no trans-Atlantic flights would be affected by the eight-hour rule, the only routes subject to effect being those from Lydda to Munich or Zurich.
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