By PAUL LUNGEN
Staff Reporter
Canadian Jewish News
El Al Israel Airlines and Air Canada, arch-rivals on the long-haul Toronto to Tel Aviv route, recently signed a "codesharing" agreement that will see each airline book its passengers on the other's flights. The agreement takes affect Nov. 1 and will permit El Al to offer its passengers flights to Israel seven days a week. In addition, El Al will also codeshare on Air Canada's flights to Montreal, Vancouver, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.
The agreement comes at a time when airlines around the world are facing difficult economic times and are looking for ways to streamline operations, said Stanley Morais, sales and marketing manager for El Al's Canadian office. "This codeshare agreement underscores El Al's commitment to achieving and enhancing the level of service on this route even during these difficult times in the airline industry and for Israel as a whole," added Rami Fischer, El Al's manager for Canada. El Al's fall and winter schedule offers flights to Israel on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday.
Under the newly inked arrangement, passengers wishing to travel on other days will be booked on Air Canada while El Al's 6,000 frequent flyer members will continue to earn points flying on the codeshared Air Canada routes, Morais said. El Al will increase its flight frequency to four per week for the busy summer season, he added. Air Canada also announced it was signing a codesharing agreement with Lufthansa for flights from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv. The Canadian airline touted the agreement as improving its customers choices for daily flights to Israel while enhancing convenience for those who want to make a stopover in Europe. "These codeshare agreements benefit Air Canada's customers by providing easy access to a greater choice of flights," said Bill Bredt, vice-president, Network and Revenue Management. "We constantly strive to provide our customers with superior schedules, so in addition to maintaining our four times weekly operation, we are very pleased to offer our customers this improved schedule with El Al and Lufthansa."
Under a codesharing agreement, each airline books a block of seats on the other's flights and offers them to its passengers using the booking airline's tickets. However, passengers switching between airlines will still have to change planes and even terminals in Toronto, Morais acknowledged. El Al has previously initialed similar agreements with Iberia Airlines and Delta. "It's almost like a strategic alliance that allows airlines to offer passengers seamless travel and more options, more days," he said.
Although travel to Israel is down as a result of the security situation, the airline posted respectable numbers on the Tel Aviv route this summer. Offering four flights per week on the airline's new 282-seat Boeing 777s, El Al flew at 90 per cent capacity, Morais said. Still, travel to Israel is down overall in recent years, and more than 60 hotels have been forced to close due to lack of business. Jewish passengers, travelling as part of missions, groups or organizations, continue to choose El Al as a way of helping the country's national airline and Israeli workers, Morais said. However, "the numbers are nothing like they were in the past" for Christian groups, which once made up a substantial proportion of El Al's passenger traffic.
On another issue, Morais said the Toronto office had no information about recent reports the Israeli government is considering privatizing the airline and how that might affect flights from Canada. News reports from Israel, quoting the cabinet secretary, indicated El Al will be sold to private investors. That reversed an earlier decision to keep 51 per cent of the company in the hands of the government. According to the new plan, approved by a ministerial committee, 49 per cent of the company would be sold in the first part of 2003 and the remainder would be sold in phases. Meanwhile, the state-owned airline announced it lost $19.3 million (all figures US) in the second quarter of 2002, an increase over first quarter losses of $13.7 million but an improvement over the same period a year ago. Analysts attributed the losses to a drop in tourism, the local recession and the global slowdown. In the first two quarters of 2001, El Al recorded losses of $50.6 million and $33.3 million respectively