Update 4pm: Emirates and British Airways have both announced the suspension of Israel flights.
More and more foreign airlines are canceling flights to Israel putting even greater pressure on Israeli airlines to pick up the slack. Over the past day Turkish Airlines has suspended flights to Israel until further notice.
The significance of Turkish Airlines cancelling is that thousands of Israelis are stranded aboroad or in Turkey without any way to get back to Israel," says Yaneev Lanis, cofounder of Secret Flights, a venture that uses advanced algorithms to seek out flights by monitoring tens of thousands of flights and finding real time deals for its customers. "It will be challenging for them to find another available alternative flight to Israel through another company or another cponnection."
El Al announced yesterday that its Sun D'Or unit had added four flights to and from Turkey, following the cancellation of Turkish Airlines flights. El Al has also increased flights to and from Larnaca, and has told "Globes" that there are available seats.
Turkish Airlines is not the only foreign carrier cancelling flights. Most of the foreign airlines had already stopped their flights to Israel. Secret Flights estimates that Ben Gurion airport is only operating at 40% capacity.
Secret Flights says that all flights have been cancelled by Turkish Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Airlines (cancelled until the end of October), Wizz Air, United, Lufthansa, and Vueling, Air France, easyJet, Ryanair, ITA, Air India, Air Canada, Austrian Airlines, and more. Norwegian Cruise Line has also announced cancellation and diversion of its cruises from Israel until the end of 2023. According to the report, 6% of its capacity was tied to Israel.
Secret Flights adds that in addition to Israeli carriers El Al, Arkia and Israir, the foreign airlines still flying to Israel are Air Seychelles, Air Serbia, Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, Bulgaria Air, Blue Bird, Hainan Airlines, Tarom, TUS Airways, and FlyDubai.
Lanis said, "It is welcome in my eyes that Emirates continues to operate along with its subsidiary FlyDubai, from Dubai. This helps thousands of Israelis to return each day from the east." Secret Flights is continually updating on flight that have been added and cancelled.
Lanis believes that the situation will ease next week, and that there will be more seats available on incoming and outgoing flights from Israel.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 12, 2023.
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