El Al nixes regular flights through mid-April; United cancels Tel Aviv route until Sept 7

Slight increase in number of passengers allowed on departing flights, now up to 100 people

El Al Airlines on Sunday suspended its regular flight schedule through April 18, leading to thousands more cancellations for Israelis planning to travel abroad, as wartime airspace restrictions continue to limit operations at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.

Instead, El Al will continue to operate an emergency flight schedule of a limited number of flights to several central gateways, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Bangkok, London, Paris, Rome, and Athens.

“Due to the limited number of available seats, passengers [whose flight was cancelled] awaiting assignment are being accommodated based on priority according to the original ticket issue date, with priority given to exceptional humanitarian medical cases,” El Al said.

The Transportation Ministry decided on Sunday to slightly increase the number of passengers allowed on departing flights from Ben Gurion Airport to a maximum of 100 people, up from 80.

Arriving flights to Israel have been operating without passenger quantity restrictions. However, the number of takeoffs and landings at Ben Gurion Airport is still restricted to one plane per hour. Depending on the security situation, the Transportation Ministry may increase the frequency of flights to two per hour in the coming days.

Since the start of the war with Iran on February 28, Israel’s airspace has been closed to most regular commercial traffic, including foreign airlines. State authorities have issued guidelines for limited operations of inbound and outbound flights permitted solely for Israeli airlines El Al, Arkia, Israir, and Air Haifa.

Arkia has halted ticket sales for its regular flight schedule through April 25, as it continues to operate reduced flight operations to destinations including Athens, Larnaca, New York, and Bangkok. Rival Israir has cancelled its regular flight schedule through at least April 8.

While most European airlines continue to suspend their routes to and from Israel week by week or month by month as the war drags on, major US airlines have pushed back the resumption of flight services to the country to as far as September.

United Airlines over the weekend extended the suspension of nonstop flight services from New York to Ben Gurion Airport through at least September 7.

“United flights to Tel Aviv remain suspended,” the airline said. “We look forward to resuming flights when it’s safe to do so.”

The US carrier previously put the Tel Aviv route on hold through June 14. Last week, US rival Delta extended the suspension of its New York and Atlanta routes to Tel Aviv through September 5.