
British low-cost carrier easyJet announced Friday that it will resume flights to Israel from June 1, having most recently suspended all of its routes to Tel Aviv following Iran’s first direct attack on Israel in April.
- In a statement cited by Hebrew media, easyJet said the airline will operate 38 weekly flights to and from Israel on the London, Geneva, Amsterdam, Milan, Berlin, Basel and Nice routes.
The announcement was made amid cautious optimism around a nascent hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
The announcement came after the Hungary-based low-cost airline Wizz Air restarted its London to Tel Aviv route on Thursday, along with flights to Amman, Jordan, while Germany’s Lufthansa Group said its airlines would resume flights from Israel on February 1.
- Lufthansa’s resumption of services to Israel applies to all carriers within the group, which includes Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and Eurowings. The group will operate daily flights to Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, and Vienna as well as three weekly flights to Brussels and two weekly flights to Dusseldorf, the companies said in a statement.
Since war broke out with Hamas in Gaza following the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, foreign airlines have repeatedly canceled and resumed their flights to and from Israel amid rocket and drone attacks from Lebanon and the Strip, and missile barrages from Iran and Yemen. The situation has led to Israeli airlines, chiefly El Al, operating a near monopoly with rising ticket prices.
The high-level security cabinet voted Friday afternoon to approve the hostage release-ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza, and recommended that the government adopt it, the Prime Minister’s Office said. The full cabinet then convened for a discussion and vote, with the meeting extending long into Shabbat.
The full cabinet was expected to vote by a large majority to approve the deal, which was signed overnight in Qatar and is set to take effect on Sunday.
Last week, prior to the deal being reached, senior executives of European budget airline Ryanair said the carrier expected to fly a full summer schedule to Tel Aviv this year, and predicted that other airlines would return as well.
Airlines are also revisiting policies for other locations in the region to which flights were suspended amid the unrest surrounding the multifront war, which has seen Israel fight Iranian-backed terror groups in several other countries, as well as Iran itself.
Still, airlines remain cautious and watchful before reentering the region in full.
- Air France said in a statement that its operations to and from Tel Aviv remain suspended until January 24, while its flights between Paris and Beirut will be suspended until January 31.
- A suspension of Lufthansa flights to and from Tehran up to and including February 14 also remains in place, and the airline will not fly to Beirut in Lebanon up to and including February 28, it said.
Source: Sharon Wrobel – TOI