Lufthansa Group to resume flights to Tel Aviv beginning January 2024
By Alex Hardie, CNN
(CNN) — The Lufthansa Group plans to resume flights to Tel Aviv beginning January 8, 2024, nearly three months after it suspended flights to Israel’s largest airport due to security concerns.
“Lufthansa Group continues to monitor the security situation in Israel closely and is in close contact with the local and international authorities,” the company statement released Friday said. “Possible flight schedule adjustments must be expected due to changing conditions.”
In October, almost all airlines other than Israeli carrier El Al canceled flights in and out of Tel Aviv, home to Israel’s largest international airport, after Hamas began a combined arms assault on the country and took over 100 hostages, with Israel responding by formally declaring war on Hamas.
On October 5, two days before the attack, there were 63 airlines serving Tel Aviv with a total of 256 fights to the airport, according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium. El Al accounted for about 26% of those flights. Lufthansa had five flights a day to Tel Aviv at that time, or 2% of the total.
The most recent data for Thursday shows only 10 airlines serving the airport with a total of 72 flights, and with El Al responsible for 76% of that flight volume.
The three US airlines that had served Tel Aviv – American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines – all said their flights to Israel remain halted. American and Delta said they don’t plan to resume service until at least the end of March. United did not give a date when it might resume service.
“Our Tel Aviv flights will remain suspended until conditions allow them to resume,” said a statement from United.
Lufthansa said Friday that it will publish the January flight schedule on December 18.
– CNN’s Chris Isidore and Eva Rothenberg contributed to this report.
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