Sunday, September 25, 2011

'Rosh Hashana' toast causes delays at Ben Gurion Airport

An employees' holiday toast brought Ben Gurion International Airport to a standstill for two hours on Sunday morning, delaying hundreds of passengers and interrupting flight service in and out of Israel.

The ceremony, held by the airport employees' committee in celebration of Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year), began around 10 am. The airport resumed regular activity around noon.

According to BGA's official schedule, four flights that were supposed to leave Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Georgia airports for Tel Aviv were delayed.

The information stations were deserted, and the operators working the airport's service phones had no answers for the confused passengers.

Benny, who returned to Israel on Sunday morning from Crete was waiting together with hundreds of passengers for their luggage.

"No one here knows what's going on. We are waiting for a long time but nothing is changing. They haven’t even turned on the sign.

"The conveyor belt is not working. We sought to find out what the problem was but there was no one to find out with. There's no one here," he told Ynet.

Miriam Kanorovich, who was planning to go on vacation in Eilat with her family, said that frustration was running high at the departures hall.

"I am missing a diving course because of the delay," she said. "We are sitting on the floor in a hall crowded with kids and families, and everyone is complaining."

Kanorovich said the passengers heard an announcement that "the porters and airport employees were on strike until further notice."

Dozens of people waited in the arrivals hall, puzzled over the delay. Police arrived at the site and tried to calm the furious public.

"People were yelling, I went to see what was going on and was told that there is some kind of an unexpected strike," said Doron Hess, who came to meet his girlfriend, who arrived on a flight from Switzerland. "I talked to my girlfriend, she said that nothing was moving, the luggage wasn't there, and nobody knows why."

A spokesman for the airport employee's committee, Gali Gabay, denied that a strike was in effect.

"The porters and the employees are also allowed to raise a glass for Rosh Hashana," she said. "The holiday ceremony lasted for 45 minutes, and that caused the delays."

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