For more than a year, Israel's flagship carrier El Al (ELALF) has more or less held a monopoly on flights to Israel from the United States.
When the militant group Hamas killed over 2,000 people and prompted the Israeli military’s response in Gaza in October 2023, all "big three" U.S.-based airlines immediately canceled flights to the region.
While United Airlines (UAL) and Delta (DAL) have briefly restarted their service last summer and fall, escalation with the terrorist group Hezbollah and risk of an attack from Iran have pushed these airlines to backtrack and definitively put off all Israel service until at least the summer of 2025.
Meanwhile, El Al has continued running flights to U.S. cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles with only a brief stop at the start of the war and saw a continued spike of customers who might have otherwise taken another airline. Since the start of 2024, El Al stock has soared by more than 110%.
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New flight between Tel Aviv and New York waiting for U.S. regulatory approval
That monopoly may soon come to an end not because U.S.-based airlines are restarting service (Delta, United and American Airlines (AAL) all recently confirmed that they won't be flying there until at least the second half of 2025) but because another Israeli airline is eying the market.
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Israir, a low-cost airline launched out of Tel Aviv in 1989, announced that it has applied for U.S. regulator permission to start a new route between Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv and Newark Liberty Airport. The flight that typically takes just over 10 hours has already been approved by Israel's Transportation Ministry and now depends on the approval of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
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Israir says it is 'in the advanced stages of leasing wide-body aircraft'
“Israir is in the advanced stages of leasing wide-body aircraft that will enable, for the first time in the company’s history, the operation of a direct line to New York," Israel's Transportation Ministry said in a statement.
Israir is owned by the Ramy Levy Group, the conglomerate behind one of Israel's largest supermarket chains. If approved as envisioned, the Tel Aviv-Newark flight would run four times a week both on weekends and during the week.
New York is by far the most popular U.S. city when it comes to traffic for Israel; prior to the Israel-Gaza war, both El Al and United, Delta and American were running dozens of flights between the two cities each week.
While Israeli airlines continue to offer service, very few international carriers currently run flights to the region. Some exceptions include United Arab Emirates-based Flydubai, Athens-based Aegean Airlines (AGZNF) and Ethiopian Airlines that offer limited service to destinations popular with Israeli tourists in the first two cases and flights for members of Israel's Ethiopian diaspora in the latter.
Lufthansa (DLAKF) and Air France (AFRAF) were initially working to restart flights in the summer of 2024 but quickly canceled them again as war between Israel and Lebanon escalated in the fall.
"Resuming these routes will be subject to a new assessment of the security situation," the airline said in a statement in August 2024. "Air France reiterates that the safety of its customers and crews is its absolute priority.”
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