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Until recently, El Al had a virtual monopoly on nonstop flights between the US and Israel that dated back to 10/7/23, except for some periods of time last year when Delta and United tried to compete before pulling out.
Arkia entered the JFK-Tel Aviv market in February and is doing well on the route. Its flights are currently operated by an Iberojet all-economy A330-900neo and they will switch to a GullivAir A330-200 on May 14th featuring lie-flat direct aisle access business class seats and extra legroom seating.
United resumed flying twice daily between Newark and Tel Aviv last month, and Delta resumed its daily flights between JFK and Tel Aviv earlier this month.
And now, the DOT has given tentative approval for Israir to resume flying between JFK and Tel Aviv.
Israir last operated service between the US and Israel in 2008.
As with Arkia, Israir lacks widebody planes, so they will have to contract the service to a wet leasing operator. That will take time to arrange, and there are conflicting reports on when service might launch.
Even if American fails to resume its JFK-Tel Aviv service, that would mean a record 5 airlines will compete on the lucrative nonstop NYC-Tel Aviv route once Israir launches service. If American also resumes service, it would be an incredible six airlines that would compete on the route. There are very few routes in the world with that kind of competition. Hopefully, that will translate into cheaper flights!
For now though, United has yet to resume service between Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC to Tel Aviv, Delta has yet to resume Atlanta or Boston to Tel Aviv, and American remains hopelessly on the sidelines. It will take the resumption of those flights to really drive down the cost of nonstop service between the US and the Holy Land.
Are you planning to travel between the US and Israel this year?
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29 Comments On "Will The NYC-Tel Aviv Market Become More Competitive Than It Has Ever Been?"
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Definitely planning to travel again on one of the best deals out there… Taglit offers free 8 or 14 day trips to those wanting to volunteer and ages 18-50. I went on it with a group from my Shul some months after October 7th and then again just before Purim on a trip with people from all over the world.
Yasher Koach! What sort of opportunities were you able to volunteer for?
I hope to take advantage of qantas code share with Elal before they devalue.
hopefully they do and delta/elal bring pricing down
wont fly with arkia/israir
I am SO looking forward to more competition. I briefly (about a month ago) saw sub-$1000 RT NS flights for this August, but I couldn’t commit. It’s now at about $1500+ (better than 6-12 months ago, but still…)
I would hope so because of the moment the prices are ridiculous. We used to have non-stop flights for less than $1,000 round trip, and with a stopover 5-600$ round trip. We want that back again.
Those days are long gone, gone with inflation & Covid not due to 10/7. Inflation and Covid upped everything by 100%, RT & Stopovers alike….
NYC to London has 6 airlines if you include Newark and JFK.
I think that’s the max.
That route has 7, if you include EWR, JFK, LGW, and LHR.
GMP-CJU actually has eight competing airlines daily with over a whopping 120 flights per day on this route. And that’s just a single city pair.
I think the purpose of this post is not to say who has the most flights or competing airlines. What’s unique about this route and there’s probably probably nothing else like it in the world is the distance between the city pairs. This is a 12 hour flight in both directions and the amount of nonstop Flights for a single city pair is unmatched in any other city pair, with most days having ten nonstop flights, and some potentially reaching 13 wide body flights per day in the near future.
Most other flights with high frequency on widebody aircraft, are limited to approximately 7 hours maximum per route, such as NYC-LON – 30 per day, LON-DXB 14 per day.
So for a 12 hour flight with 13 nonstop per day on widebody aircraft, completed by six different airlines this is something completely impressive. Probably the same read there are 20 banks on 13th Ave!
‘Mazal Tov!
There are so many flights and the route is still very expensive. Even with stopovers the prices for the spring and summer are much higher than pre Oct 7 prices. I guess airlines are still gouging for now but eventually the market should correct the pricing.
Yes I do it every few months but am afraid to use anyone but El Al as I can’t afford cancellations in and out of Israel.
I would have to be pretty desperate to ever fly Israir. My aunt just flew on a 6 hour flight with them and it sounded horrible. I guess you can’t expect much service from a discount supermarket chain.
more competition should equal better prices resulting in increased travel to TLV which is awesome!
and increased travel will hike the prices back up
Dan why don’t you reach out to United and Delta for when they will add their other routes
I did. They said when demand warrants it.
But how would they know what the demand is if they don’t offer more flights?
Dan can you answer? How can they determine demand if they don’t offer the service?
They have algorithms that calculate it based on people taking connections, multiplied by people who aren’t going due to the lack of nonstop service.
As someone involved in the industry for over 40 years as a TA
Its no loss to the public if AA with their anti Semitic attitude and history don’t resume their Israel flts they don’t deserve the Jewish business
Their are enough airlines flying non stop as far as pricing you’ll see a drop of a few hundred dollars on average but even charter airlines aren’t giving anything away take lalechets flight this Sunday 4/27 one way is $1029.00 that’s no bargain
With fuel inflation meals etc we won’t see pricing below 1200.00 round trip
even elal removed their P class fare from premium for next winter
There are plenty of P and A class seats next winter
Maybe A not P try checking now thru October A is award category but. P isn’t showing
Ive booked p now even for june!
I won’t fly Arkia because they are a Jewish company operating flights on Shabbos, so the added option of Israir over Elal will definitely make a difference to me.
“Will The NYC-Tel Aviv Market Become More Competitive Than It Has Ever Been?”
AMEN!
I paid before October 7 603$ United direct round trip 3 Tim’s
I still prefer EL AL, especially since they added kosher entertainment — it’s a good start, even though the selection is still pretty limited. Their service, especially in Premium, is so much better than United — they really beat them by far.
“Dan, maybe you can get them to add more kosher stuff?”
I need to fly in September. Does it pay to book an El Al flight now or should I still wait and see if the price drops a bit? What are the chances that they will drop?