As we published this morning, (Thursday) Ryanair, Transavia, Blue Bird and Smartwings are returning to fly to Israel.
In exactly one month, on March 1, Wizz Air is also expected to return and two days after the Italian ITA.
Despite the return of dozens of foreign airlines to Israel, there is one country, the United Kingdom, which, although there are normally three airlines that operate flights from it to Israel, until now none of them has announced an official return to Israel.
One of the meanings of the absence of foreign companies competing on the routes to those countries is the likelihood of high prices for flights to those destinations, due to a more limited supply compared to demand.
The British low-cost company EasyJet this morning canceled the flights of many Israelis who purchased tickets for the beginning of March.
Until yesterday, tickets were sold for the beginning of March, but this morning the company stopped the sale for this period and the next flight to Israel marked in EasyJet's diaries is on March 17.
Neither British Airways nor Virgin Atlantic have yet announced a return to Israel, when at this stage, the two major companies have postponed all flights to Israel until the end and middle of March, respectively.
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London, Photo: GettyImages
The Dutch are also still not returning their airlines to Israel.
The Dutch airline KLM, part of the Air France-KLM corporation, has not yet announced its return to Israel, although its counterpart, Air France, landed here for the first time about a week ago and operates flights on the Paris-Tel Aviv route.
The subsidiary of the two giant companies from the Netherlands and France, Transavia, is also returning to Israel as mentioned today, but will only operate flights to Paris and has not yet returned the flights to the Netherlands.
In the period before the war, three Spanish airlines operated in Israel, Violing, Air Europe and Iberia, and as of now, none of them have returned to Israel.
Air Europa announced twice a return to Israel, the company was supposed to return to Israel at the beginning of January and postponed the return, then at the beginning of February and the return was again postponed and as of now, the date is February 22, when it too may change.
Iberia and Violing have not yet announced an official return to Israel and as of now, there is no expectation of an official return of Spanish airlines to Israel.
Barcelona and Madrid are also still far away, planes of the Iberia company, photo: AP
The American airlines are also still not returning to Israel, but here it is a problem that they have to deal with and have not yet found a solution.
While the European airlines can fly to Israel and take off a short time later with the same crews, the American companies have to lodge their crews in Israel, which is not an easy problem for them, since there are few crew members who agree to stay a few days in Israel while the country is at war.
The Canadian airline Air Canada, Cathay Pacific and other airlines that arrive from distant countries and on long flights are now facing the same issue.
The crews are not ready to stay in Israel, Air Canada, photo: Coco
At the same time, the Portuguese airline TAP also canceled all its flights to Israel for the entire upcoming summer period and it is not clear when it will return to Israel.
The Belgian Brussels which belongs to the Lufthansa group which returned with almost all its brands, still remained outside and it also did not declare an official return to Israel.
As expected, all the Turkish airlines that flew to Israel until the beginning of the war period have not yet returned the flights to Israel and it is not clear if they will return in the near future.
Foreign airlines have not yet returned from Jordan, Egypt and Morocco, and even in these cases, it is not clear when, if at all, they will return to Israel.
The Icelandic airline Iceland Air canceled all flights to Israel until 2025 at the beginning of the war.
will remain empty of Israelis in the near future, the streets of Istanbul, photo: Avi Cohen
So from which countries did foreign airlines return to Israel or are they expected to return soon?
France, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Greece, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Uzbekistan, Cyprus and China.
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