Airlines continue to extend suspensions of Israel flights

Several major airlines have continued to extend their cancellation of services to Israel and other parts of the Middle East due to heightened security fears in the region.

Lufthansa Group, which also owns Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Swiss and Eurowings, has now suspended all flights to Tel Aviv, Amman, Beirut, Erbil and Tehran, up to and including 26 August.

Meanwhile budget carrier Ryanair has cancelled all flights to and from Israel up to and including 30 September. The airline blamed “operational restrictions which are beyond our control” for the extension of the cancellations of its Tel Aviv services. Although another low-cost carrier Wizz Air has already resumed services to Israel.

US carriers American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines have also each extended the suspension of their flights to and from Tel Aviv.

Delta has pushed its suspension of services to Israel from 31 August to 30 September, while United has also continued its indefinite suspension of flights to Tel Aviv.

American Airlines, which has not resumed flights to Israel since the Hamas attacks in October 2023, has currently suspended flights to Tel Aviv through to 29 March 2025 after originally planning to restore the route in late October.

Currently, Israeli airline El Al is the only carrier flying between Tel Aviv and the US. El Al has also increased capacity on its most popular European routes to fill some of the gap left by airlines, which have temporarily suspended services to Israel.

Dina Ben Tal Ganancia, CEO of El Al, said: “Since the outbreak of the war over 10 months ago, we have been working in a complex market and under conditions of uncertainty.

“The cancellations of foreign airlines mandate that we do everything possible to provide a suitable response for the entire Israeli public.”

Ben Tal Ganancia made her comments as El Al announced its second quarter financial results, which included a 33 per cent year-on-year rise in revenue to $839 million and a net profit of $147 million for the quarter – up from a profit of $59 million in Q2 of 2023.

The airline said that it had achieved an “exceptional” load factor of 92 per cent during the second quarter “due to the smaller number of flights to Israel with foreign airlines”, which was driving up demand for its flights.