Barak Eilam, CEO of Israel's Nice Systems, said on Monday that his company wouldn't fly El Al Airlines until the carrier changed what Nice called "their practice and actions discriminating women", referring to El Al moving women seated next to ultra-Orthodox passengers.
In response to Eilam's statement, El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin said the airline observes equality without distinction of race, religion or gender. He promised that El Al would "immediately remove from the flight" those refusing to sit next to another passenger.
Nice's protest came after El Al's Tel Aviv flight took off from New York over an hour late last week, as four ultra-Orthodox men refused to sit next to women, forcing the flight attendants to find new seats for two female passengers.
Nice is one of Israel's oldest and biggest high-tech companies. El Al Airlines is the largest Israeli airline company and the country's national carrier.