British Airways was the latest carrier to announce it was suspending flights to Israel amid security concerns in the area. The company said its flights were suspended until Aug. 28. "Safety is always our top priority," the airline said on Sunday. Earlier Air France and KLM also suspended their flights to and from the Ben Gurion International Airport.
Some 61,000 people were expected to pass through the airport on Sunday, a lower figure compared to late August in previous years. However, at 5:19 am, following IDF's preventive strike in Lebanon, the airport was shut down for two hours, reducing the number of travelers to about 50,000 by midday.
Israelis quickly understood that an attack in the region would lead directly to foreign airlines leaving the country. and the local population appeared to be more accustomed to the situation.
Hadas Kanti, 24, from Jerusalem, was supposed to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight for a major trip to India with a friend. But just ten minutes before departure, everything changed. "Suddenly, they stopped the flights and told us our plane had landed in Cairo—no flight," she said. "It’s disappointing because we were all set to go. We arrived at 2 a.m., went through all the procedures, and made it to the gate. We had no idea there was chaos, and then suddenly, at 5 a.m., they announced no flights until 10."
At the third-floor departures board, groups of passengers stood anxiously waiting to see what would happen to their flights. Some were "lucky" enough to face only delays, while others saw their flights completely erased from the board. Among them were siblings Shani (28) and Il (26) Porano from Kibbutz Sasa in northern Israel, now living in Tel Aviv. They were supposed to fly to Italy in the afternoon with the rest of their family to visit extended relatives, but they quickly realized that wouldn’t be happening.
"We were really looking forward to this trip because it fits perfectly with our work schedules," Shani said. "We woke up in the morning and saw a ton of alerts from the kibbutz on our phones. Still, we thought the flight would go ahead, but when we got here, it was canceled. It’s tough. Our father’s entire side of the family lives in Rome, and we haven’t seen our grandfather and uncles in a long time. We’re trying to find other flights to get there."
Due to the air space being closed, flights en route to the airport were diverted to Ramon and even Cairo. Several foreign airlines have suspended flights to and from Israel, and out of 360 international flights scheduled for today, 50 have been canceled so far.
- Other airlines that have announced flight suspensions include Etihad (UAE), Aegean (Greece), Transavia (Netherlands), Corendon (Turkey), Wizz Air (Hungary), and Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopia), which later said they would resume their flights on Sunday evening.