Delays, staff shortages ground El Al during summer's busiest time

A record-breaking 908,000 people traveled abroad from Israel in August, according to figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.

But Israel's national carrier, El Al Airlines, has been struggling to keep up. According to information by Flightstats, a website that tracks the performance of international airlines, El Al was the tardiest airline in the world in August.

CBS data released Thursday said some 854,000 Israelis departed Israel in August, 823,000 of them flying once and the remaining 3% twice or more. Included in this number are Israelis who live abroad and visited Israel in the summer.

Including July figures, the CBS data showed that 1.8 million Israelis traveled abroad over the summer, an increase of 13% from 2015. Counting from the beginning of January, the number rises to 4.5 million, a 14% increase from the same period in 2015. Data from the CBS also show an increase in the number of departures to the Sinai Peninsula, up to 133,600 from 92,200 during the same period in 2015.

However, El Al has found it difficult to meet the demand. The Flightstats data showed that only 37% of the 3,107 international El Al flights in August departed as scheduled, while 63% of flights departed after a delay of 15 or more minutes. The average delay for an El Al departure was 45 minutes. In contrast, the most punctual airline in the world is Dutch KLM, owned by Air France, which boasts an 88% punctuality rate on its website.

El Al's share of Ben-Gurion Airport's flights was 30% in August, meaning a significant percentage of Israeli air traffic suffered heavy delays.

The delays were caused by a shortage in flight staff, as there is currently a labor dispute between the company's management and pilots. El Al said it was doing everything within its power with the resources available to the company to maintain a timely flight schedule, even resorting to leasing airplanes from foreign airlines.