Ryanair has announced that it has cancelled all flights to and from Israel until October 27, after the holiday break. The Irish low-cost airline had announced last month that it would resume flights at the end of September.
The latest announcement comes as several airlines have resumed flights to Israel after last month’s threats of retaliation by Iran and Hezbollah failed to materialize. Today, the Lufthansa Group, Israel’s largest airline group, which includes Lufthansa Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines and Eurowings, resumed flights to and from Israel after a hiatus of more than a month. The group operates multiple flights to six destinations in Western Europe: Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Vienna, Brussels and Zurich. Italian airline ITA also resumed flights today with a single daily flight between Tel Aviv and Rome.
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Other foreign airlines that have resumed flights to Israel include Ethiopian Airlines, Wizz Air, Bulgaria Air, Aegean, Air Europa, Iberia and Tarom. Polish airline LOT also resumed flights to Israel on Tuesday.
Some foreign airlines have taken advantage of the void left by the absence of Ryanair and easyJet and added new routes. AirBaltic will resume four weekly flights from Israel to Riga on September 8 with a new route between Tel Aviv and Vilnius starting at the end of March 2025.
In addition, Blue Bird Airlines will launch a route from Tel Aviv to Berlin 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.
We have seen a certain recovery in terms of Israeli tourism, with 64,500 passengers arriving at Ben Gurion Airport today on 380 flights, according to the Israel Airports Authority. In August, there were between 50,000 and 60,000 passengers on most days. Most of these passengers are Israelis, with 844,400 travelers traveling abroad last month compared to 1.3 million in August 2023. Only 69,000 tourists visited Israel last month compared to 311,000 in August 2023.
This article was published in Globes, Israeli Business News – en.globes.co.il – on September 5, 2024.
© Copyright Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.