Ryanair has announced that it has canceled all flights to and from Israel until October 27, after the holidays. Last month the Irish low cost airline had said it would resume flights at the end of September.
This latest announcement comes as many airlines have renewed Israel flights after last month's threats of reprisals by Iran and Hezbollah that have not materialized. Today Lufthansa Group, the largest aviation group, which consists of Lufthansa Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Swiss, and Eurowings, resumed its flights to and from Israel, after more than a month’s suspension. The group operates many flights to six destinations in Western Europe: Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Vienna, Brussels and Zurich. Italian airline ITA has also resumed flights today with one daily flight between Tel Aviv and Rome.
Other foreign airlines that have resumed flights to Israel include Ethiopian Airlines, Wizz Air, Bulgaria Air, Aegean, Air Europe, Iberia, and Tarom. On Tuesday Polish airline LOT also recommenced its Israel flights.
Some foreign airlines have entered the vacuum created by the absence of Ryanair and easyJet and added new routes. Air Baltic resumes four weekly Israel flights to Riga on September 8 with a new route between Tel Aviv and Vilnius beginning at the end of March 2025.
In addition Blue Bird Airways will launch a Tel Aviv - Berlin route at the end of October with three weekly flights. Blue Bird currently operates flights from Tel Aviv to 14 destinations in the Mediterranean and Europe.
There has been a certain recovery in terms of Israelis tourist traffic with 64,500 passengers traveling in and out of Ben Gurion airport today on 380 flights, according to the Israel Airports Authority. In August there were between 50,000-60,000 passengers on most days. Most of those passengers are Israeli with 844,400 traveling abroad last month compared with 1.3 million in August 2023. Only 69,000 tourists visited Israel last month compared with 311,000 in August 2023.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 5, 2024.
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