
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, amid cautious optimism around a nascent hostage-ceasefire deal between Israel and the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
- 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.
Meanwhile, British low-cost carrier EasyJet, which is popular with Israelis and flew multiple routes to and from Tel Aviv until the war, told Reuters it welcomed the news of the Gaza ceasefire and would review its plans in the coming days.
Since war broke out with Hamas in Gaza following the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught on southern Israeli communities, foreign airlines have repeatedly canceled and resumed their flights to and from Israel amid rocket attacks from Lebanon and missile barrages from Iran. Lufthansa Group eventually suspended flights to and from Tel Aviv up to and including January 31, 2025.
On Wednesday night, after some 15 months of war, Israeli and Hamas negotiators indicated they had reached an agreement outlining a phased ceasefire, though final details were still being worked out Thursday.
- 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 summer, 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.
Turkish Airlines has said that on January 23 it will restart flights to Damascus, Syria, after more than a decade, with three flights a week, less than two months after Islamist-led rebels toppled the former regime.
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.
“The operations will resume on the basis of an assessment of the situation on the ground,” it said in a statement.
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: TOI
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