El Al, Israel's largest airline, announced this morning (Monday) the suspension of its flights to two significant destinations - Marrakesh in Morocco and Dublin in Ireland.
The decision follows a sharp drop in demand for the destinations, and in parallel with the anti-Israel positions taken by officials in the governments of both countries.
The decision joins the decision El Al made about a week ago - to stop flights to Johannesburg in South Africa.
Senior officials in Ireland, Morocco and South Africa have often spoken out against Israel since the outbreak of the "Iron Swords" war, a fact that caused many Israelis to give up coming to those countries, thus leading to the cancellation of the Israeli airline's direct flights to those destinations.
Dublin in Ireland (archive), photo: Getty Images
Currently, it is not clear when and if the company will return the flights to those destinations.
The flights to Dublin and Marrakesh have been stopped since the beginning of the war, but El Al announced as mentioned that these routes will not be renewed during the coming summer season, at least.
Shlomi Zafarani, VP of Commercial and Aviation Relations at El Al, said: "Since the outbreak of the war, El Al has made sure to strengthen the network of routes in the sought-after destinations in order to continue to preserve the air bridge.
In view of the situation, we frequently monitor the changes in customer preferences and the strength of demand, and as part of adjusting our mix of destinations, we have decided not to renew the routes to Ireland and Morocco for the upcoming summer season.
Improving the flight schedule allows us to add during the summer season about 500 flights on other popular routes in Europe, and to connect Israel to a wide variety of destinations around the world while exploring new options."
El Al plane (archive), photo: Koko
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