Why airlines leave passengers on the plane for hours before takeoff

To the congestion and long lines at Ben Gurion Airport, another problem has recently been added: passengers are forced to wait for hours inside the plane even before takeoff. For example, on Sunday, a TUS flight to Cyprus scheduled for 9:00 AM took off with a 3-hour delay.

Initially, passengers were told that they were waiting for another bus with passengers who were late for boarding. The crew, who left the door open, could not explain the reason for the delay to the passengers and distributed water and energy bars to try to calm the atmosphere. There were hundreds of passengers on the plane, many of them with small children, who had prepared bottles and formula for a flight of only one hour - and in retrospect, they remained on the plane for over 4 hours.

Last night, a similar incident occurred with a Blue Bird flight to Crete, which took off two hours after all passengers were already seated. In this case, the crew insisted on closing the door and keeping the plane in full readiness for takeoff, for fear that when the order arrived and the plane was not ready, the authorization would pass to another plane. The angry passengers complained that the air conditioning was working only on ventilation, and only after an hour and a half, when the crying of the children drowned out the shouts of the passengers, the crew was forced to open the door and allow fresh air to enter the plane.

At some point, one of the passengers contacted the police, who forwarded a request to the Ben Gurion Airport control tower asking to prioritize the flight. The reason is that airlines are afraid of missing the takeoff slot allocated to them, so they start boarding as planned and leave passengers in their seats even when the flight is delayed. Since the authorization to take off may be received on short notice, evacuating the plane could cause the company to miss the slot and get into another delay, which would also affect the plane's subsequent flights.

The result is that passengers sometimes wait for hours in a crowded plane, sometimes without full air conditioning and with a limited supply of food and drink, instead of in the air-conditioned and spacious gate area.

These days, Ben Gurion Airport is in a complex situation: American refuelers parked at the airport receive priority over passenger planes, even if they have not been scheduled a takeoff or landing slot in advance. In addition, the flight schedule at Ben Gurion Airport is significantly affected by the situation at airports in Greece, which is currently in third place in Europe for flight delays, against the backdrop of a surge in air traffic in its airspace.

In the last month, Greece was responsible for 11% of all flight delays in Europe (France is in first place with 40% of delays, followed by Spain with 14%). The reasons for the delays in Greece are mainly capacity limitations in the airspace and a shortage of manpower. The airport in Athens alone was responsible for 7% of the total delay time for flights recorded in Europe, and the airport in Macedonia recorded an additional 4% of all delays.

The congestion in Greek airspace is occurring in parallel with the continued increase in passenger traffic and tourism. Greece was ranked seventh among the ten busiest aviation markets in Europe, with an average of 2,842 takeoffs and landings per day. This is an increase of 5% compared to the same period last year.

For Israeli passengers, these are dramatic figures, as Greece is one of Israel's main tourist destinations. In addition, most flights from Israel to Europe pass through its airspace. Therefore, a limitation in Greek airspace affects not only direct flights to Athens and the Greek islands, but also flights departing from Israel and passing through Greek airspace on their way to other destinations.

Kavei Hufsha, which owns TUS and Blue Bird, responded: "The planes were ready for takeoff on time, and all passengers were already on board. The delay was caused by unusual congestion on the air route, and the crews were waiting for authorization from the tower in Greece, so it was impossible to know the duration of the wait in advance. It is important to emphasize that the flights were carried out using planes of the Bulgarian airline ALK Airlines. During this period, the Kavei Hufsha group operates about 90 legs daily from and to Israel through a variety of airlines, with a significant part of the activity being to 8 destinations in Greece. During the wait, the crews did everything possible to ease the situation for the passengers, including distributing water, opening doors, and operating ventilation, subject to safety restrictions. The planes were parked on the runway and not at the gate, in order to be ready for takeoff immediately upon receiving authorization."