Arkia employees are preparing for a major fight over the planned sale of the airline to R’ Ezra Ungar, a 36-year-old charedi real estate investor from Brooklyn, amid concerns that he intends to shut down the company’s flights on Shabbos and Yomim Tovim if the deal goes through.

According to i24NEWS, the Nakash brothers, who control Arkia, are in very advanced talks to sell the airline, and sources in the group believe the deal could be completed within the coming days. While Arkia has been holding talks with several parties, the report says the most advanced negotiations are now taking place with Ungar. According to the report, if the sale is completed, Arkia would completely stop flying on Shabbos and Jewish Yomim Tovim.

Ungar, who is described in the report as a Vizhnitz chassid who grew up in Monsey and later settled in Yerushalayim after his marriage, was previously linked to the deal in a Kikar Hashabbos report that said the driving force behind the move was not only financial, but also a desire to stop public desecration of Shabbos by an Israeli airline.

That agenda is already drawing strong resistance from Arkia employees, who hold a significant 22.5% ownership stake in the airline through the workers’ union. According to i24NEWS, employees are now organizing and holding urgent consultations as they prepare steps to oppose the sale.

“We already met with the investor a month ago,” Avi Edri, chairman of Arkia’s workers’ committee, told i24NEWS. “We made it clear to him in a way that could not be misunderstood that we will not allow Arkia to be shut down on Shabbos. In response, he told us at the time, ‘If you don’t accept me willingly, I won’t come.’ And now it is happening behind our backs. You simply cannot come to an active airline with a declared agenda of shutting the company down on Shabbos — and he made that absolutely clear to us.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)