Update: The Tel Aviv route will begin on 9/9/20.
American pulled out of the Tel Aviv market on 1/4/16 after they merged with USAirways.
At the time they flew daily from Philadelphia to Tel Aviv on an Airbus A330.
American has announced that they are entering the market again starting September 9th, 2020, this time with 3 weekly flights from Dallas/Fort Worth on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner.
It’s an interesting strategy. At the time of the merger it seemed to make sense to add JFK or Miami service to Tel Aviv, but since then American has been killing off their JFK hub and El Al started their own Miami service.
Philadelphia was apparently ruled out due to its alleged lack of profitability the last time around, Chicago is getting El Al service next year, and Los Angeles already has El Al service, so American avoided those as well.
That left their hubs in Charlotte, Dallas, and Phoenix as the remaining options for Tel Aviv service. Dallas has apparently won that battle for American’s re-entry to Tel Aviv.
Dallas has by far the smallest Jewish population of any other North American metro area that has nonstop Tel Aviv service. It will be interesting to see if the strategy of avoiding competition pays off for AA.
American says that their interior of the US to Tel Aviv is underserved, so they’re hoping to take advantage of that lack of competition.
If it’s a success, expect American to make it a daily flight and add service from other hub airports.
Maybe we’ll even see some business class award space on the new route? We can dream, right?
You can currently fly between North American and Israel from Boston, JFK, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, Newark, Orlando, San Francisco, Toronto, and Washington DC. Next year Chicago and Dallas join that record setting list of cities with nonstop service to the Holy Land.
American also announced seasonal service next summer between:
- Philadelphia-Casablanca
- Chicago-Krakow
- Chicago-Budapest
- Chicago-Prague
Morocco has been on my bucket list since reading this DDF Trip Report, so it’s great to see US carriers start this route!
Will you fly American on any other new routes? Do you think Dallas-Tel Aviv will be a success?
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91 Comments On "American Will Resume Flights To Tel Aviv And Will Add Casablanca And Other Flights Next Year!"
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When do tickets for elals ord-tlv route start going on sale?
right now. head to http://www.delta.com or http://www.united.com.
Why would you fly ORD-DFW-TLV?
It’s already on sale from El Al.
Sep 9 2020! Next year!
And this is why I should have a coffee after a late night before starting to post in the morning 😀
I think dfw has potential as it has very good connectivity for the Midwest (shorter connections the. Nyc or west coast)
Why would someone from Chicago or Cleveland want to fly out of the way to get to Tel Aviv unless it was significantly cheaper?
It’s great for anyone in Texas, but I’m not really seeing the appeal from other areas, except for AA loyAAlists.
I hate to backtrack but if the fares are right, tons of people from Denver take the SFO-TLV to go on United. Often significantly cheaper than via NY and way better timing (can leave at 6pm to get the 9:40 PM SFO flight and NY involves a wasted day or a red-eye). People from the mid-west are anyway used to one-stop and if fares are good and connections short, they will take this. Backtracking can also help you leave later as you “gain time” to get your connections.
Also, large numbers of LA people anyway take one-stops, so why not through DFW? Tech people in Austin, oil & gas execs in Houston and the tons of Christian tourists would use this. Also, all the tech people in Seattle could use this and go long way to filling business class, especially with the AA partnership with Alaska. This route is out of the box but could work.
I think it’s only a major advantage for someone for Dallas or maybe Austin. The fairly large Jewish community in Houston doesn’t gain that much, since they’ll anyway have to connect to another city to fly to TLV, so they’re not really saving that much time nor is it that much more convenient to fly to Israel via Dallas than it is thru another city like Chicago, NYC, Miami, etc.
True. Plus Houston residents are very likely to be UA loyalists.
How can you assert this without knowing the timing? If it’s like a 10pm flight (like United’s IAD flight), Austin or Houston people could work all day and hop a 7pm to DFW and then straight shot to Israel. They can’t do that and connect in any of those other cities you mentioned.
Im confused. Why would the DFW be more profitable than PHL was? Its just a smaller Jewish community, away from the East coast and similar size hub. What makes DFW better? More connecting options? Seems doubtful that this has to do with profitability. You yourself doubted that the PHL route was scrapped due to profit issues as US Airways had boasted about the route being so great. Wasnt the AA lack of TLC service due to TWA dispute?
To be honest, I have no idea why AA thinks DFW is a better idea than PHL, other than DFW flights have been more profitable in general for them.
I guess people flying from PHL can also just drive to EWR for established flights with multiple daily flight times.
In DFW, AA can get away with just 3 weekly flights to dip their toes in the water. I could see PHL-TLV coming back if DFW-TLV works.
And the TWA thing? Thats worked out now 2 decades later?
No. Not worked out. I suspect they’re not starting until 9/20 to give them time to work that out.
This is all about the tech community in Dallas and Austin which is huge these days and rivals silicon valley.
There are tons of Christians who travel with their Texas churches to Israel every year. I assume they had this in mind.
Because DFW is an up-to-date flashy hub, and PHL is a logistical nightmare. Many AA ex-Plats try to avoid PHL.
Supposedly, USAir made good money on cargo on that PHL-TLV flight due to Teva Pharmaceuticals which is near PHL
Hey look — the רשעים are back to flying to Israel
רשעים?
American Airlines who were very quick to cancel TLV routes twice (TWA & USAir) under less than upfront circumstances
“Dallas has by far the smallest Jewish population of any other North American metro area that has nonstop Tel Aviv service. It will be interesting to see if the strategy of avoiding competition pays off for AA”
In my opinion people travel to isreal more for tourism than Jews traveling to Thier holy land, so this does make sense.
IDK about you, Eli232, but on my flights to Israel, my fellow passengers were mostly Jewish (though not necessarily Frum).
From NY?
Orlando has fewer
Orlando is a once weekly flight for the summer only. It’s a destination for Israelis, not v/v.
What happened to the lawsuit after merged with TWA? Did they settle?
I guess that has been resolved or is no longer an issue.
Well I would not want to be on the inaugural flight if I didn’t know the resolution. ,:)
Don’t think it’s resolved.
Maybe DFW has more evangelical mega churches than any other North America hub?
Certainly possible.
Also has many Palestinian and Jordanians
1. Who says this is aimed for jews DFW Metro ois 7th largest metro in US
2. Don’t they still owe TWA Pensions? I thought that was the main barrier for AA
Until this point, all of the Tel Aviv flights have centered around large Jewish population bases.
Obviously this isn’t targeted for Jews, but it remains to be seen if that strategy will work.
Or tech hubs
SFO?
SFO has already direct flight from ElAl and United.
Well United flys from San Francisco and that’s not targeting Jews?
SFO metro has 392,000 Jews and a active tech center.
DFW metro has 57,000 Jews.
Where do you get those numbers from?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_Jewish_population
The SFO flights certainly aren’t centered around the Jewish population. It’s centered around connecting 2 of the most prominent tech/science/research hubs in the world. Similarly, Texas has a fast growing tech sector as well (particularly AUS)
That said, this is a smart play for AA not because of O/D traffic, but because of connecting traffic it will bring in…. if this won’t be the most convenient connecting point for most of the western hemisphere, it’s definitely up there.
The only possible logical alternative would be MIA, because while they’d technically be going up against El Al on O/D, they’d be able to fill up planes with all the onwards connectivity that El Al can’t. But their central/south american route network out of DFW is pretty strong too, and it’s a notoriously more profitable airport to operate out of than MIA
Ted Cruz is definitely taking this one FTW. Lots of religious (Christian) Texans in love with the birthplace of יהושע
From USA Today:
Vasu Raja…….American’s long-range plan is to offer its own flights between the United States and other destinations in Africa, Raja said.
“We think there’s a huge opportunity there,” he said. “This is the first step along the way.”
American is returning to Tel Aviv after a four-year absence. It ended service between its Philadelphia hub and Tel Aviv in 2015 because the route wasn’t profitable, Raja said.
The new flights to Israel will operate from Dallas, the airline’s largest hub.
The technology industry is a big target for the flights, Raja said.
I am Jewish and I definitely plan on looking into this route. The only way I can currently fly non-stop to Israel is on United through EWR or on Air Canada with a minimum 12 hour layover each way. Dallas is about 1 hour out of the way but there are flights every hour and it is worth it for a new 1-stop flight with a short layover. This will be great for all of the smaller Jewish communities in the Central US and Dallas’ community is growing very fast. Also a good business flight.
Why is Dallas more convenient then Chicago will be when LY starts flying?
Who codeshares with LY to allow good connecting flights and the airline taking responsibility for delays on the connection? It would be great if LY would code share with an airline serving its new routes domestically. (AA used to codeshare and they serve ORD and MIA as hubs, but with AA attempt to enter the TLV market the chances of them agreeing to codeshare again now is slim to none.)
EL AL has a partnership with JetBlue for connecting domestic flights, which is great for Elal’s flights to JFK and boston, which have large JetBlue hubs (in fact, EL al likely only started a route to Boston to begin with in order to take advantage of the many connecting jetblue flights there). It’s true that El al doesn’t have connecting options at their other destinations, but the truth is you can probably get to most anywhere in the US via JetBlue from either JFK or Boston anyway.
JetBlue does not serve the deep south or midwest (including where I live), These are the same people who are in prime locations to take advantage of this DFW flight. Delta also doesn’t fly many routes from this region to JFK so it limits that connection too. This is an underserved region of small Jewish communities, but very large religious Christian communities that are likely to take advantage of this new option.
will it make sense to use miles to go from NYC via DFW
Yes.
Think of how many airports starting next year will be able to have one connection service to TLV. Do we know the flight schedule yet?
That don’t currently have one stop service on another airline?
Probably close to none of any real consequence.
This route primarily benefits connecting traffic from Mexico and south. SFO and IAD have almost no service to those areas, and LY has no partners at MIA and other cities so they’re irrelevant.
Thus their choices, at least on US carriers are through DFW on AA or NYC via DL/UA.
In a recent survey asking passengers to list their preferences between connecting through DFW, connecting through NYC or having a colonoscopy, most chose DFW, colonoscopy, connecting through NYC in that order.
To the extent that there is convenient 1 stop travel from central/South america to TLV, it’s mostly through AA joint venture partners at LHR and MAD. The only other option that is not totally abominable is AC through YYZ.
Actually it does very little for South America as there is no sterile transit in the US. That makes US connections a non-starter for most South Americans who would need a US visa.
Plus South America has GRU-TLV, which does have sterile transit.
Many passengers connect through the US to get to/from SA, even if it’s a PITB.
The GRU-TLV flight is on an AA partner, as are the primary European carriers connecting TLV to SA. So it’s not exactly “competition” like they are with UA connecting people through EWR or DL through TLV
Plus while it’s not the tech corridor that Silicon Valley is, DFW/IAH/AUS is no slouches when it comes to being a technology hub. Dozens of tech giants are either headquartered or have major operations there (including most of the Silicon Valley giants)
There is no joint venture with LATAM. There’s no difference to AA’s bottom line if you fly LATAM GRU-TLV or United EWR-TLV unless it’s booked by AA.
There’s no logical reason someone in South America would choose to connect to TLV in DFW over GRU.
AUS and DFW are great, though AUS will still need a stop and they already have 1 stop service to TLV on other airlines.
IAH is a UA fortress hub. I doubt many IAH frequent flyers are going to choose to fly to TLV on AA over UA just because AA has a DFW flight.
I hope this flight is a success, but of all the new TLV routes launched, this one seems the most at risk.
I believe they are in the process of finalizing the joint venture. Plus they already have strong JVs with IB and BA who are (relatively) big players in the South America TATL market.
As for the other big cities in TX, UA/DL cannot match AA’s frequencies to DFW (and in many cases, it can even be logical to drive to DFW). Point taken about UA loyalty in IAH, but the flip side is that
1) There is no shortage of people who would avoid connecting through EWR/JFK like the plague if they didn’t have to.
2) A premium passenger connecting through EWR instead of DFW means an extra 20% of your journey will be in domestic first class instead of int’l business class.
1. Don’t forget that UA flies to TLV from 3 cities already. Would be really fun if they add IAH-TLV in response to this.
2. True, but people flying J from IAH are likely to still be brand loyal to UA for miles, upgrades, etc.
A UA flight from IAH would probably devastate the viability of the DFW route, since it means that DFW would no longer win on convenience for all the markets where it would currently be the most convenient.
And lord knows no one is choosing AA for their operational excellence
They don’t need to pull a ton of high yield passengers off of TX–>EWR–>TLV. Just enough to fill up 3 flights enough to make it profitable. Surely they can find enough premium passengers who are no so tremendously loyal to UA that they would spend an extra 1200 miles in domestic J just for the pleasure of connecting through NYC
It may do very little for South Americans headed to Israel. But how about Israelis who travel to South America? Many of them may already have a US visa (or passport). And Sao Paulo on the East Coast is not a convenient connection for passengers from Peru, Ecuador and Colombia on the West Coast. It’s like routing a San Francisco passenger through Miami.
I think it will add non-stop flights from some smaller deep southern cities with large christian populations looking to go to Israel. Little Rock, AR, Birmingham, AL and Jackson, MS currently don’t have 1-stop flights. These aren’t major cities in any way but they are important DFW regional areas
Great for those cities, but Little Rock and Birmingham are not going to make or break this flight.
It won’t make or break the flight but it will definitely help their profit margins. From smaller airports like these airlines are often able to get away with charging as much if not more for the short domestic flight than the international one.
Which cities of significance and relevance are you getting at that will have one connection to TLV? Are you talking about Austin, El Paso, Galvastin?
Austin already has one-stop service.
Can we expect TLV fares to go down all across the board due to this?
From 3 weekly DFW 787 flights? No.
I agree with some others who have previously suggested that the large evangelical population around Dallas and throughout Texas might help make these flights successful. Economically and demographically, the State of Texas has been growing massively, so perhaps there might be a large enough audience looking for a vacation to Israel. I still believe that United’s IAD- TLV itinerary will fail miserably, much because of several of the reasons why people think DFW might fail. Why connect in IAD if you have so many more options from EWR?
Here is what I’m thinking, Dallas/Fort Worth is used a lot in hidden city, AA thinks there is a lot of ppl flying to those city’s from Israel…
LOL!!!
Their stock is up over 2% after this news broke
I think that’s because they finally did SOMETHING.
There are more Jews in Las Vegas than in Dallas/Fort Worth? You are probably right, although it is difficult to find accurate, up-to-date numbers. But evangelical Christian tourism to Israel is booming, and American knows its home town well enough to realize that it can fill planes with people who go to church on Sunday.
I like the comment from a reader in Denver who noted that it’s easier to make a connection in San Francisco than through an East Coast airport. At least in Business Class, do you want a long domestic flight followed by a shorter international one, or a short domestic flight followed by one that gives you time for a good night’s rest between dinner and breakfast?
So go beyond the comments that imagine connections only from other Texas cities. The Jewish population of Phoenix and Tucson is more than 100,000. Phoenix was American’s home town before Dallas, and is still a major hub. Ten percent of the passengers on those 787s will be connecting from Arizona, is my prediction.
Honored that my trip report added Morocco to your bucket list!
It is an incredible country and we absolutely LOVED our time there!
Hit me up in DDF if you have any questions.
even if like your saying their making a non stop from dallas, by the time that starts up american aadvantage wil be devalued so you wont be able to book at the current business class rate to tlv? iinm
anyone know when tix for next summer for Casablanca will go on sale?
I find DFW to be a much more attractive connection based on experience:
– fares are generally lower to DFW than northeast
– Plenty of availability across all major and regional carriers
– Less delays into/out of DFW due to ample runways/gates
– Security lines are shorter than major NE airports
– Staff and airline reps have been much more friendly and helpful in DFW
I can attest to the last point
what the flight time?
Perhaps, there is a Latin American play here too. While it’s true Miami is a large AA hub for LATAM flights where do all the Jews in Mexico, Panama, Argentina (300k-500k Jews) connect through? Miami? This gives them more options specifically Mexico City residents.
South Americans can connect in Sao Paulo or Europe.
The US doesn’t have sterile transit, so many Central/South Americans can’t connect in the US, as they would need to first get a hard to obtain US visa.
I don’t think this has anything to do with the Jewish population of Dallas, Dallas does have is a big Christian population and that’s probably what went into their decision-making
From the Dallas Morning News: A nonstop flight between Dallas and Tel Aviv takes 12½ to 15 hours, depending on wind. American intends to leave Dallas at 10:15 p.m. and land in Tel Aviv at 6:30 p.m. the next day. Tel Aviv is eight hours ahead of Dallas. The return flight will leave at 11:50 p.m. and arrive in North Texas at 5:05 a.m.
Bible Belt Christian Pilgrimage Trips
I’m guessing it’s a combination of evangelicals/tech/lower competition/AA route efficiencies.
Honestly, it could work better than Boston.
Jacob R Ewingski (JR Ewing, of Dallas’s Southfork Ranch) is laughing in his grave at this great deal he got for DFW. Maybe it was Jerry Jones’ doing.
Dallas has small Jewish population but a super large we love Israel Christian population. Might make up for it.
Think tech in Dallas – lots of Israeli ex-pats, can’t wait for a DFW direct flight and no EU connection on El-Al.