Uri Sirkis, CEO of Israir, was interviewed today (Tuesday) by Anat Davidov on 103FM regarding the jump in Israir’s net profit, which now stands at approximately 18 million dollars.
“After two very challenging years, we find ourselves prepared to absorb the peak demand from an operational point of view, and by means of leased planes and an additional plane that we took in. What happened is that the company’s market share in the airport stabilized, and in terms of passenger volumes, we flew a similar volume of passengers and even exceeded the number of passengers that the company The flight in 2019,” Sirkis explained. “This is reflected in the profit line that the company presented in the first nine months of the year.”
To the question of whether it can be said that the Corona crisis is behind them, the CEO replied in the affirmative: “Yes, you can certainly say. There are still certain segments that have not yet reached the results of 2019 – the most significant among them is incoming tourism. The first months, where we experienced a dramatic decrease in the traffic of tourists entering Israel. If we look a year ahead, we estimate that next year can be even better than this year.”
Regarding the heavy loads at the airports and whether they will continue, he replied: “We see a relaxation in the operational aspect compared to what we experienced in the third quarter of the year. So, there were heavy loads created due to a lack of personnel. Most of the operational problems we experienced were due to a lack of workers in the supply chain in the fields The airport. We saw it in the lack of people who load luggage, and in the lack of people who check in. We saw it in leading airports in the world. Today we see that the lines have filled up and the workers have returned to work. There is still a shortage of workers, but it is not severe.”
He continued to say on the same subject: “The winter period allows everyone to organize and prepare accordingly. What we saw in the summer, I don’t think it will repeat itself, certainly not in Hanukkah. There can be loads of this and that, but whoever manages the event in an intelligent way and checks in On the Internet, you won’t have to arrive three hours ahead of time. These queues are photographed well, but when you look, we monitor and there is a significant reduction in waiting times. Today it is literally just over an hour.”
Finally, he referred to new destinations to which the company plans to fly: “There are destinations that we opened last year and will continue to operate. Such as, for example, Sicily and Naples. We are strengthening the Spain region with flights to Malacca. I believe that passenger traffic in 2023 will be the same as in 2019. Prices have dropped by an order of magnitude of over 15 percent.”
Assisted in the preparation of the article: Eden Ben Ari, 103FM