Germany’s Lufthansa Group is set to resume flights to Tel Aviv on February 1, 2025, after what the airline called a “thorough analysis of the situation in the Middle East.” The announcement was made shortly after a long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was struck but before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed a vote to approve the deal.
Lufthansa and other group carriers, including Austrian Airlines and SWISS, last suspended flights to Tel Aviv in September 2024 after heightened tensions in the region led to Iran firing a barrage of ballistic missiles toward Israel.
In the aftermath of the attack, the European Air Safety Agency (EASA) warned airlines to avoid flying to Israel or even overflying the country at high altitude due to the “degradation in the security situation” across the Middle East.
Regulators cautioned that there was a “high risk” to civil aviation from rockets and missiles, although the agency downgraded its risk assessment in October 2024, saying that airlines could resume flights as long as they had measures in place to closely monitor the security situation and divert flights at a moments notice.
Despite being given the green light to resume flights, many European carriers, including those from the Lufthansa Group, decided to keep their flight suspensions in place over fears that the security situation could deteriorate again.
One of the reasons that airlines have been so cautious about restarting flights to Israel isn’t that they don’t think authorities in the country have the ability to manage the day-to-day risk to civilian aircraft but because of Israel’s consumer protection laws.
Airlines are required to compensate passengers if they cancel a flight at short notice, even if the reason for the cancellation is that they have decided it’s not safe for the flight to operate.
As a result, carriers like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic wiped their schedules for flights to Tel Aviv all the way through to April 2025, when it is hoped that the security situation will be stable and last-minute cancellations will no longer be required.
On Thursday, the Lufthansa Group said it would also resume overflights through Israeli airspace on February 1 but that flights to Beirut and Tehran would remain suspended until later in February at the earliest. Overflights through Lebanese airspace will also remain suspended.
For the time being, the Lufthansa Group does not plan to have pilots or flight attendants stay overnight in Tel Aviv.
