Iron Sword War has significantly changed the tourism and aviation industry. At the same time, Israir announced an all-time record breaking in revenue, number of passengers and number of flights.
The year 2024 is expected to be different from its predecessors in many ways, and following all this, we interviewed Uri Sirkis, CEO of Israir, who will talk about the expectations, estimates and numbers.
Israir CEO Uri Sirkis, Photo: Public Relations
Despite the war, you broke records in revenue, number of passengers and number of flights, how did that happen?
"Despite the war, Israir will end the year at an all-time high. We entered 2023 when we had a positive gap in backlog compared to the same date in 2022 of $30 million.
We expected to maintain this gap and perhaps increase it by the end of the year. We maintained this gap and this $30 million was eroded during the war, but still not completely eroded and we will still end the year on a record high in all the parameters that make up the production function – passenger volumes, revenue, number of segments that I hope will reach one million passengers and was a goal we are close to achieving and the amount of flight hours we produce thanks to our Airbus fleet."
What are the chances that we will see foreign tourists here soon?
"If we're talking about people who live abroad and enter Israel with a foreign passport and meet their families here, then this type of tourism is not expected to be significantly affected.
The display of abductees at Ben Gurion Airport, photo: Sivan Faraj
The classic tourists who sleep in hotels and travel will arrive much less in the coming year. There are several reasons for this – once because tourism organizers abroad reduce risks and remove Israel from the tourist map, most of them do so for economic reasons. Of course, there is also the security concern that will affect foreign tourists and it will take time for them to return to Israel, we expect a hit of about a million and a half segments around foreign tourists alone."
When will we return to a kind of routine in the tourism and aviation industry?
"The first quarter of 2024 is already finished, many airlines have announced that they will only return from the April area, the likelihood that we will return to a kind of aviation routine is around Passover and north, and that is if there is no change and there are no new fronts or dramatic developments. It can be assumed that the impact next year will be at least 4 million segments.
Our working assumption is that next year about 18 million passengers will pass through Ben Gurion Airport. We believe that the Israeli product will be strong next year, and therefore Israeli airlines are expected to strengthen and the market share of Israeli companies is expected to grow, and we believe that we, as Israir, will reach about 8% next year."
Turkey has been the leading target in recent years, what will happen to it in the post-war period?
"Turkey was the leading destination among Israelis and it will definitely be hurt, mainly because Erdogan is a direct and enthusiastic supporter of Hamas and this creates a situation of fear on the part of the Israeli public to vacation in Turkey, the removal of Turkey from the shelf of Israeli and Turkish tour organizers who understand that Israelis will not return so quickly, and of course there is the matter of patriotism of Israelis who will not want to waste money in such a country.
Turkish President Erdogan, photo: None
There are quite a few macroeconomic events, currently gasoline is trading at low values and there is an expectation of an interest rate cut, which means that the shekel is expected to strengthen against the dollar, which will cause the price of a flight ticket at the shekel price to decrease and become more convenient, which will encourage more consumption. In addition, as after the coronavirus, Israelis will want to be abroad more, we felt this even after previous operations, Israelis will want to get some air abroad and vacation, and as a result, the demand for flights abroad is expected to increase."
The tourist map is expected to change with new destinations, what are your estimates in this regard?
"We are increasing our flights to Athens and the Greek islands due to the high demand and also because we have invested in hotels there.
Greece will be an excellent substitute for Turkey, but also Bulgaria and Georgia, nearby and cheap destinations that will be an excellent option for Israeli tourists and we will expand the number of destinations in these countries. We will increase our activity in Italy, a country where public opinion is pro-Israel, we will fly to Milan, Rome, Sicily, Verona, maybe we will also fly to Genoa and continue to expand our destinations in Italy.
At the moment we are making an attempt with Paris, we believe that there is a lot of potential in this destination with lots of locals supporting Israel and at the moment we plan to operate three weekly flights, it will start from January. We will be adding flights to Prague, we will make three flights a week there and we have a codeshare agreement with Smart Wings there and we are stepping up everything related to Prague from the summer. We are starting to fly to Bucharest and reinforcing Budapest already this winter and this will continue into the summer schedule. We will continue to fly to Chisinau, a destination that turned out to be desirable and flights are quite full there."
What can we expect when it comes to flight prices?
"I assume that the prices of flights in the summer will be expensive, this summer is different than other summers for two reasons – the first is the location of Tisha B'Av and the days before it, it falls at the peak of the summer season and this causes demand to be concentrated in the last two weeks of August and this period is expected to be expensive, a destination with the first two weeks of summer. We anticipate pressure at the beginning and end of summer, so it's best to book flights early and book flights for the coming summer.
Full Ben Gurion Airport (illustration), photo: Yossi Zeliger
In addition, people will want to leave after the war and we expect high demand, and that's before I even talk about the fact that there is a chance that some of the evacuees will still be in hotels, which means that there may be fewer rooms in hotels in Israel, which may cause many people to choose to vacation overseas."
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