EL AL Pilots Demand 25% Stake In Airline

"they should also have the most upside during good times."
They already have. It's called a bonus.

This is what happens when you try to put this equation
pilots + unions+ ownership (management) = big mess.

It's funny when people think you get the upside during good times by owning the company.
I owned a fraction of Amazon and never got any upside ever. The only thing is the stock value appreciation. The difference here is I can sell that ownership anytime but I highly doubt the 25% pilots own can be sold in the market easily. Otherwise it will be (big mess)^2 given the structure in the future.

El Al will never fail. Mossads always need a covert transportation.
They can easily save money by reducing their extreme security and maybe get some IDF budget.

@Eskimo: isn’t security paid for by the state already? I know that El Al have also refused to operate to countries which have denied them the right to have their own security as well

The value of each employee can be expressed by their replaceability. And the airline industry is going to have quite a surplus of workforce for the years to come. It's quite an easy question - if pilots are unwilling to go down from 10-15k EUR/month to let's say 7-10k, then they are free to look for another use on the labour market. Of course, provided they find some company that is willing to put a price mark of 10-15k a month on their skill. No one? Well... Then perhaps it would be wiser to shut up and go from absurdly overpaid to just overpaid. That's the virtue of the free market and it's called demand and supply. Asking for 25% of shares for not getting what their were used to in the past is a bad joke. Times have changed, get used to it.

How likely is it that El Al eventually goes broke and is replaced with a merged Arkia-Israir to replace them?

The challenge EL AL’s faced for years pre Covid 19 have been competition from low cost European carriers like Easyjet and Wizz Air offering cheap flights into different parts of Europe, larger carriers like British Airways and United offering 1 stop flights across the Atlantic through their hubs while Asian carriers like Air India, Korean Air and Cathay Pacific were offering 1 stop flights through their respective hubs to Asia and Australia/NZ. Not long after Cathay first started their flights to TLV in 2018 before the protests in HK they had been making a banging on that new route mainly from Australia/NZ passengers wanting a 1 way option to Israel.

To Martin,
Why do you think the pilots are "absurdly overpaid".
Do you realise the money,sweat and tears pilots go through to get there.
Well,i do.
Flying in the beginning is not that glamorous and well paid.
They deserve every penny.

@Edi,

In this case, it's probably true- do a search and Haaretz reports that some El Al pilots earned up to 160,000 shekels/month, which is equivalent to over $45K... Obviously the pilot union is strong in Israel. El Al resorted to doing some wet leases, but got a lot of push back from passengers complaining that they were paying El Al prices, but not getting El Al flights.

But Martin is wrong about easily replaceable by 7-10K Euro staff. Most El Al pilots are ex-military, so have strong solidarity, and the Israeli government isn't going to look favorably at a full on union busting exercise.

So I'd assume they will come to some compromise, and the pilot union will receive a smaller ownership stake than requested, but more than others are getting. And good for them.

No union, negotiating in a down market doesn't seem to be a good strategy. My guess is there will be thousands of pilots looking for work so the airline may be able to replace at lower than offered.