A strike by ground personnel paralyzed Ben Gurion Airport for four hours this morning, stranding more than a thousand passengers and delaying the departure of the Israeli advance party and press planes for Cairo where Premier Menachem Begin will fly tomorrow. The wildcat strike was called to protest a court order enjoining the workers committee not to call a strike in support of wage demands. Special permission was finally granted for the official planes to take off for Cairo. But 17 commercial aircraft due to depart this morning were grounded while hectic negotiations were conducted with the strikers.
When the strike was finally called off this afternoon, the flights took off in rapid succession leaving behind the luggage of many passengers. The latter were promised that their baggage would be forwarded on later flights. The Ben Gurion Airport shutdown was one of several labor disputes that have idled postal workers, telephone technicians and communications engineers in the past few days.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
