Delta and United Airlines are leading the return to Tel Aviv after abruptly cancelling their flights on May 12 when Israel’s largest and busiest airport came under sustained rocket attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas. The first flights are scheduled to depart New York JFK and Newark late Friday night, arriving in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening.
The decision to resume services comes just hours after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire deal in the early hours of Thursday bringing to an end a deadly and destructive 11-day conflict. The ceasefire appeared to be holding later on Thursday although there were continued tensions continued at the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.
Delta has scheduled a flight from New York JFK to Tel Aviv which is expected to take off at 11:52 pm on Friday, while United Airlines will operate a flight from Newark to Tel Aviv on Friday which is scheduled to depart around 45 minutes before Delta’s flight.
But United’s flights from Chicago and San Francisco to Tel Aviv won’t be making a return on Friday, and American Airlines isn’t expected to return to Tel Aviv until Sunday.
The same is true of British Airways which is expected to resume its flights to Israel from Sunday, May 23rd. Lufthansa will also resume flights to Tel Aviv on the same day, while Virgin Atlantic said it would wait until Monday before restarting its own service from London Heathrow.
“We very much welcome the news that a ceasefire has been agreed,” a spokesman for the airline said, warning that the service remained “under constant review”.
Etihad Airways, which was one of the last airlines to suspend service to Tel Aviv, resumed its three and a half hour flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv on Thursday before the ceasefire had been reached. Flydubai reduced service due to the conflict but continued flying between Dubai and Israel throughout the fighting.
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