As Brussels Airlines is resuming flights to Tel Aviv next week, the unions representing its ground handling staff are demanding that baggage handlers be relieved of their duties for “moral reasons.” They called on the airline “not to resume flights until the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank has stopped.”
The common union front in the baggage handler Alyzia also refuses to work for El Al “or any other Israeli airline” again. The French company specializes in airport ground services and handles baggage and cargo for Brussels Airlines.
“Sometimes it is impossible to find the words to describe this madness,’’ the union representatives wrote in a letter sent to the management of Alyzia.
According to the unions, Alyzia workers should be given the option of choosing whether or not they wish to participate in the handling of baggage and cargo on flights to and from Israel. “As a union, we will support these people. If there is any form of obligation, we will consider taking action,” one representative said.
Brussels Airlines, for its part, has stated that its flights will be operated “by volunteer crews.”
The Belgian airline is part of German Lufthansaz group. The group has decided to gradually resume flights to and from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport starting August 1.
When Israeli airspace was closed on June 13, at the start of the brief war with Iran, the group—comprising Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and Eurowings—suspended its flights to and from Tel Aviv.