'Holding us hostage'
Further information may be available on the Airports Authority website, at though as of
hope press time last night, the site was down.
Antitrust Authority figures indicate that 45 scheduled takeoffs were affected - canceled altogether or delayed. The financial damage to the airlines and passengers must have come to millions of shekels, say industry insiders.
Arie Geva of Herzliya was supposed to fly with friends to Uzbekistan yesterday. They reached the airport at 10 A.M. and an hour later had no idea if they'd be flying out at all. There were no representatives of the airline or airport to talk with, he said. "We decided to wait, because we were afraid that if we went home, the flight would leave at some point without us, and then we'd lose our money," he told Haaretz.
Geva and his friends - and the thousands more thronging the terminal - waited patiently in line at the check-in, which did not advance at all for hours on end.
"I think holding a strike during the holiday ... is thuggery," said Geva. "If they want to strike, that's their right. But they shouldn't do it during the holiday, or shut down the airport. They were holding us hostage. That isn't legitimate."
