The list of most active airlines has undergone a revolution. After El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) in first place with 370,000 passengers, 28% of all passengers (down slightly, compared with January 2017), comes Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz Air, which flew 74,500 passengers, 90% more than in January last year, making it the leading foreign airline in Israel, the Israel Airports Authority reports.
In third place was British airline easyJet, the longest-standing low-cost airline in Israel, which flew 73,000 passengers, 29% more than in January 2017. Regardless of relations between the countries, Turkish Airlines increased the number of its passengers in January by 37% to 69,000, putting it in fourth place. Rounding out the top five was Russian airline Aeroflot. Like Turkish Airlines, many of its passengers took continuation flights to various destinations around the world.
Passenger traffic at Ben Gurion Airport continued to climb in January, with 1.3 million passengers, 15% more than in January 2017. 1.16 million of those passengers passed through Terminal 3 and 133,000 passengers passed through Terminal 1 (from where low-cost airlines fly).
Leading destinations
Where did they fly to? The US remained the leading destination, followed by Turkey, after a 40% rise in the number of passengers flying there. Again, most Israeli passengers flying to Turkey took continuation flights on one of the three Turkish airlines operating flights from Israel: Turkish Airlines, Pegasus, and AtlasGlobal.
The third leading destination for passengers from Israel in January was Germany, followed by France and Italy, to which passenger traffic grew 25%. Other destinations with a steep increase in passengers included Poland (due to the expanded activity by LOT Polish Airlines, among other things), Cyprus, Hungary, and China, from which passenger traffic rose 43%.
Rated by airport, the leading airport destination for passengers from Israel was Istanbul Ataturk Airport, followed by Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, Moscow Airport, and Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on February 11, 2018
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