Sources inform ''Globes'' that Arkia Airlines Ltd. last week applied to the Ministry of Transport for designated carrier status on Tel Aviv-Paris route. The application includes a follow-on flight from Ben Gurion Airport to Eilat.
El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) is currently the only Israeli airline with designated carrier status on the Tel Aviv-Paris route. Arkia and Israir Airlines and Tourism Ltd. only make charter flights on this route.
Awarding Arkia designated carrier status on Paris route will consolidate its position on the route. The application for designated carrier status is part of the airline’s drive to expand its flight and tourism activity in the Jewish and non-Jewish French markets.
Arkia owners’ representative Gad Tepper CPA said the airline believed that French tourist traffic to Eilat would increase during the winter of 2007, in view of an anticipated drop in prices. The basis for this assessment is that the current security situation in Israel will cause a drop in reservations from Europeans now planning their winter vacations. Lower prices are expected to boost demand among French Jews, whose motivation for visiting Israel will grow.
Arkia plans to apply for designated carrier status on other routes, in addition to Paris. It has already applied for designated carrier status to New York, Frankfurt, Berlin, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Brazil and Argentina.
Tepper said no Israeli airline had designated carrier status to Brazil and Argentina, so it was unclear why the application had not already been approved. Arkia and Israir both previously applied for designated carrier status on the New York route, but Arkia withdrew its application when the airline was sold. Then-Minister of Tourism Avraham Hirchson, who now serves as Minister of Finance, said that if Arkia reapplied for designated carrier status, it would get it. Tepper said Arkia’s new owners, the Nakash brothers, planned to buy a number of planes for the airline.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 27, 2006
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2006