Few Canadians travel to Israel as often as Yehezkel Shabtai.
Few Canadians travel to Israel as often as Yehezkel Shabtai.
On average, he flies to Israel 20 times a year. Since 1994, he has flown to Israel numerous times.
Duty calls him to Israel, where he was born and raised.
Shabtai, 55, an Air Canada captain based in Toronto, has been flying the Tel Aviv route about twice a month since 2005.
He may be your pilot the next time you fly to Israel.
Shabtai, who joined Air Canada in 1979, began flying to Israel in 1994.
With 20,000 flying hours behind him and a captain since 1999, he is one of Air Canada’s most experienced pilots.
In addition to Israel, he flies to destinations in Europe, including London, Paris, Frankfurt and Rome. He used to fly to Asia as well.
Depending on weather conditions, he takes the northern or southern route to Israel. On the northerly route, he flies past Gander, over Ireland, Norway or Poland and then on to Greece and Cyprus before landing at Ben-Gurion Airport.
On the southerly route, he passes St. John’s or New York City, heads past the Azores islands and southern Europe before landing in Israel.
“It doesn’t matter which route we take,” he said. “Everything is computerized.”
On taking off from Pearson International Airport, Shabtai uses manual controls. In 90 per cent of cases, he also lands manually. Once airborne, he depends on a cruise control system to guide the aircraft, a Boeing 767, which holds about 211 passengers and a crew of 11, including three pilots.
“We monitor the weather, flying conditions, airplane systems and talk to control agencies along the way.”
As for jet lag, he said, “We all suffer from it, but we deal with it.”
On the 10-1/2-hour flight to Israel, he has time to rest, sleeping three hours and 15 minutes in a cabin behind the cockpit and taking a 15-minute cat nap.
Pilots and passengers get different meals. “They’re supposed to be cooked separately, in case of contamination.”
Layovers in Tel Aviv, at the Sheraton Hotel, can last from 24 to 72 hours, depending on the season.
He usually visits family and friends in the city. “I have aunts and cousins and old school friends,” he said.
Shabtai was born in a hospital in Jaffa and lived in Pardes Katz with his parents, Yona and Ruth, and his sister, Judith (who resides in Vancouver today).
Yona and Ruth were Iraqi Jews from Basra and Baghdad, respectively. They left Iraq at the end of 1949, via Iran, fearing that the Jewish community in Iraq no longer had a future after Israel’s birth in 1948. They were also Zionists.
Shabtai’s father was a train conductor in Israel, the same job he had in Iraq.
The family emigrated from Israel in 1966, believing that opportunities were greater in Canada. They settled in the Bathurst and Finch area, where Shabtai, the father of four grown children, still lives.
“I wanted to go back to Israel, but it was not to be,” he said. “I felt an attachment to Israel. I had friends and relatives there.”
A graduate of Newtonbrook High School, he got his pilot’s licence at 17. “Flying fascinated me, and the more I got into it, the more I was hooked. After logging 10 hours in the air, I knew I wanted to be a pilot.”
After getting his private pilot’s licence in 1969,and his commercial licence in 1972, he worked in Sault Ste. Marie and in Kingston as an instructor and pilot before being hired by Air Canada as a second officer.
He flew routes in North America and the Caribbean before becoming a co-pilot in 1989.
“A pilot has to be able to manage a situation and make decisions based on that,” he explained.
“You can’t let down your guard and you have to be cool and alert,” he added.
Every six months, like every other pilot, he submits to a simulator test.
Air Canada’s mandatory retirement age for pilots is currently 60, but Shabtai hopes the rule will change so that he can fly for 10 more years.
As he said, “At most airlines, the retirement age is 65.”