New Israeli airline Air Haifa will return its planes to Haifa from the 22nd of this month, with flights to Eilat and to Larnaca in Cyprus. The flights from Haifa will be renewed thanks to the removal of some of the wartime domestic aviation restrictions, among them the restriction on flying from Hadera northwards, which will allow Haifa Airport to return to full activity.
Air Haifa planned to operate from Haifa Airport but had to operate from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport because of the closure of the airspace from Hadera northwards at the end of September. The airline commenced operations at that time, thus expanding the offering of flights to Larnaca at a time when foreign airlines fled Israel. The company initially operated flights to Eilat’s Ramon Airport as well, but after two weeks it focused its activity on flights to Larnaca in order to secure regular air connections to Israel.
Among Air Haifa’s founders are Palo Alto Networks founder Nir Zuk, Strauss Group CEO Shai Babad, former El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin, who is CEO of the new airline, former El Al chief commercial officer Michael Strassburger, and former ZIM CEO Rafi Danieli.
"Globes" found that on the Air Haifa website flights can be booked to Ramon Airport and to Larnaca starting from $157 return for December 2024 and January 2025.
The Israel Airports Authority said in a statement: "Because of the ceasefire agreement, most of the restrictions on flightpaths in Israel have been removed, including on flightpaths to Haifa Airport. The airport is returning to operations on a format similar to the situation before the war. The airport at Rosh Pina will reopen on January 1, 2025."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on December 3, 2024.
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