El Al provide incentives to travel agents who recruit club members

El Al recently launched a new program offering agents and coordinators bonuses for providing them with the annual statistics of those business customers who travel on Lufthansa, Delta, Continental, British Airways and Turkish Airlines. A spokesperson for El Al: "We have not violated any ethical rules".

Based on their new program, El Al announced that in exchange for details of every 20 business passenger, they will reward the agent with a pair of business class tickets to a choice of different destinations.  None of the airlines mentioned previously have a code share with El Al.

Despite officials from the foreign airlines expressing their anger at the program, with accusations that El Al are breaching the agreement of confidentiality between agent and customer; decision makers within El Al believe that this is a legitimate marketing tool, that is required following requests from customers.  “Travel agents are responsible for 90 percent of the sale of air tickets, so they are a contributory factor to marketing” explained an El Al spokesperson.  “I understand that some of the competitors don’t like this, but El Al as a third party is not infringing any ethical rules.”

The same spokesperson advised that those same foreign airlines had in the past acted similarly when ultra orthodox passengers had boycotted El Al. “At that time those companies didn’t hesitate to approach our ultra religious customers and to entice them with special offers.

El Al’s official response to this issue: Because the company has to deal with changing market conditions, it has to adapt to the increasing competition in the field of aviation.

“In recent years, with the growth in competition and the introduction of foreign airlines, some passengers have joined the frequent flyer programs of those foreign airlines. In that time they have accumulated air miles. Many of these passengers have now approached us with the wish to return and fly regularly on El Al, at the same time requesting that we allow them to reclaim their benefits accumulated on other frequent flyer programs.   El Al is responding to the request and has publicizing the offer for them to do this.”