Originally Posted by
dand99
Quite a few Israeli companies have a policy of not overflying hostile countries (employee safety - on the 1 in xxxxxx chance you would have to emergency land in Tehran, for example).
This policy is somewhat beneficial to LYs figures....
I was on the TLV-BOM route every couple of weeks some years back. Terrible, old, old, old aircraft. Regular passengers - mostly businessmen and diamond merchants.
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This policy also makes no sense. When LY flies to India and BKK they fly over the Red Sea, around the Arabian Peninsula, and then out to the Indian Ocean. On most of that flight you are flying close to nations that are hostile to Israel and/or unstable and over a waterway that is full of Somali pirates and weapons smuggling to that part of Africa, weapons that include stinger missiles. Recently an EL AL 763 had to make an emergency landing in Eritrea. Can you imagine being a passenger on that flight? Point is that the routes from Israel to parts of the far east traverse over unfriendly areas to Israel, whether you fly on EL AL or on another carrier.
I find little difference in flying over the Red Sea knowing that on either side of the a/c there is a hostile or unstable nation as oppose to flying on TK over Iran. A few years ago a TK flight went tech and landed in Iran with an Israeli on board and nothing happened to the Israeli. That was when the regime was more hostile than it is now. Here is an article describing that event:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...396127,00.html