Oz Berelowitz was appointed CEO of Arkia tonight and a few hours later, took time for an interview in which he reveals the new destination they intend to fly to, what the prices will be in the near future, whether they will fly to Sri Lanka and which destinations are expected to be in demand in the near future.
Congratulations on your new role, what's the first thing you plan to do as CEO?
"Arkia entered the coronavirus badly, has not yet had time to recover and has already entered the war. We were still limping and didn't go into the war that smoothly and now is our time to work right. We want to increase our means of production and we will increase the number of our aircraft, of course in accordance with the security situation. We expect that from March-April, people will return to flying in higher numbers, and if there is still a war, there will be a kind of war routine," Berelowitz elaborated on the number of planes and preparations for a return to a kind of aviation routine, "We expect that the season will return to the flight schedule that we already planned in about three months, and our plan this year is to operate nine planes, while the top priority is to increase Arkia's fleet in the next year or two. We will work in one Airbus fleet (321-320) and at the same time we will bring in foreign planes and operate a total of 8-9 planes Already the season from April. This is a large number of aircraft that will carry about 1.3 million international passengers in 2024 if our predictions come true."
Oz Berelowitz, Photo: Photo: Coco
The war is changing the map of targets, what is planned for us soon?
"The map of destinations is changing because of the war, but I don't see too dramatic a change. Flight numbers to Turkey are expected to drop significantly and I think they will be cut by about 50%. Traffic to vacation destinations will move to Greek destinations, where we will see many more Israelis in 2024, and that is what we are aiming for. Dubai is hurting, but not like Turkey and we feel high demand for Dubai and I believe it will stay that way. Eastern Europe has been and will continue to be a highly sought-after region and will even grow. Israelis will remember the countries that are less sympathetic to Israel, especially in Western Europe, and therefore we will see more Israelis coming to Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary and countries in Eastern Europe. Of course, the traffic to Paris or London will not stop for many reasons, but we will feel some changes. At the same time, I believe that Italy will not be harmed and will even increase in the number of Israeli tourists coming to the country, and we are considering operating direct flights to Lisbon in Portugal for the first time. I believe that demand for Sharm will return at a low intensity and Morocco will be hit very significantly."
Arkia plans to fly to Lisbon, Photo: Getty Images
One of the spoken lines you planned was for Sri Lanka, what about that?
"We are working very opening Sri Lanka, we will make a decision soon and we will probably decide to activate Sri Lanka even if it is on the long route, because the demand for the destination is high and it is one of the most beautiful and special destinations there is. As for India, we may have to postpone the route to Goa and at the moment it is not clear how much of the feasibility this line has."
A village in Sri Lanka, photo: Getty Images
Quite a few Israelis have complained about prices in recent months, what can we expect to see in the near future in this respect?
"Already from January and February we will see a decline in prices that we were used to seeing in December. Until now, there was a very limited supply both in terms of Israeli and foreign companies, and now that is changing and we will see a 15%-20% drop in flight prices for January and February. Passenger numbers are lower than what we have become accustomed to in the past two years, although we are definitely seeing an improvement trend with a very large backlog of orders for Passover and of course also for the summer. Price levels are highly dependent on foreign airlines and their rate of return to Ben Gurion Airport. You have to remember that the plane market in Europe is 'boiling,' the airlines are flying on planes and some of the foreign airlines did not wait to see the development here in Israel and simply transferred planes to other destinations, so it is still unclear when all the foreign airlines will return to Israel, and it depends very much on how intensity they are."
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