French airline Air France announced Tuesday that it would renew its service to Israel starting January 24, after it, and other airlines, stopped flying to Ben Gurion Airport following the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
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Air France, which was ranked seventh in the Skytrax airline ranking list, and named the "Oscar of the aviation world," in June 2023, will operate three weekly flights on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays with an Airbus A350 aircraft featuring Economy, Business, and Premium classes.
Sun d'Or, a subsidiary of the Israeli El Al airline, announced that it would increase the frequency of flights to Warsaw to five weekly flights starting January 17. These flights will be added to the two weekly flights the airline operates to Krakow in Poland.
Additionally, starting in February, Sun d'Or will add two more weekly flights to Tbilisi, Georgia, bringing the total of scheduled weekly flights to nine. Sun d'Or also operates nine weekly flights to Larnaca and three weekly flights to Kishinev.
The flights are available via El Al’s website and through travel agents in Israel. Gal Gershon, Sun d'Or’s CEO, said, "We recognized the need of Israelis to vacation abroad during this time, especially to destinations in Eastern Europe, which are considered to be affordable and close to Israel.”
“Warsaw is less than a four-hour long flight from Israel and is a popular tourist destination, that travelers can go to for a short period. Accordingly, we decided to operate a flight schedule that includes five weekly flights to these destinations throughout the winter season to meet the travelers’ needs."
On Monday, Israel’s Airports Authority published its annual summary report revealing that 2023 concluded with over 21 million passengers on international flights passing through Ben Gurion Airport, marking a 9.3% increase compared to 2022.
The Airports Authority said in a statement, "During January, the number of foreign airlines flying to Israel was expected to double with the Lufthansa Group’s resuming activities at Ben Gurion Airport today (Monday). The group includes Lufthansa, Swiss, and Austrian Airlines. The Austrian airlines would be returning to Ben Gurion Airport next Tuesday.”
“The Greek Aegean Airlines is also expected to resume flights to Ben Gurion Airport on Thursday. These airlines are affiliated with the Romanian Tarom Group, a flag carrier that already resumed operations at Ben Gurion Airport last week, alongside airlines such as Flydubai, Red Wings, Azimuth, Ethiopian, Airzena, Etihad Airways, HiSky, Uzbekistan Airways, and Hainan Airlines,” the statement added.
“Some of these airlines continued to operate their routes to Israel amid the war. Later in January, additional foreign airlines were expected to resume activities in Israel, including TUS Airways, Transavia (to France), Bluebird Airways (to Prague), Bulgaria Air (to Sofia), LOT Polish Airlines, and Vueling. It is important to note that these dates still aren’t final, and the return of foreign airlines to activity in Israel depends on further developments."