The two-day strike of Israel's airlines in protest of the country's "Open Skies" aviation deal with the European Union came to an end on Monday after the airlines reaching an agreement with the government.
The Finance Ministry said "it agreed to address the airlines' concerns over security costs derived from deal. As a result, the airlines announced they would stop their strike, and the powerful Histadrut labor union also said it would drop its plan to halt flights out of Israel's Ben-Gurion international airport Tuesday," reported USA Today.
The "Open Skies" pact, which reduces restrictions on European carriers for using Israeli airspace, thus, increasing competition, would expand the number of flights between Israel and Europe and allow Israel to become a layover hub--the airline workers believed that this would put their jobs at risk and decided to strike.
However, Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid stated that "the Open Skies reform is good for Israel. It will lead to the lowering of prices and increase competition, and it will not harm work places in the market, rather the opposite," according to USA Today.
The deal, which will not be implemented until April of 2014 was also praised by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The goal of the reform that we approved today is to lower the prices of flights to and from Israel and to increase incoming tourism," he said, reported USA Today.
On the other hand, critics of the agreement warned that Israel's small fleet of planes, along with high security costs, would hinder it from competing with larger international airlines.
In fact, Ofer Eini, head of the Histadrut, told Israel Radio that "he favors Open Skies, but the deal needs to be amended to secure local jobs. He said the arrangement could cause local airlines to collapse, warning that thousands of jobs are at risk," stated USA Today.
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