Originally Posted by
Ditto
Well if so then your 8 hours must be flying to VDA, in which case ETM will only make things better, given that Intl flights never landed at ETH.
Yes the winds will be the same, but the ETM terminal seems to be located in the middle of the runway which I suspect will make the taxi time slightly shorter
But how does that change ETH vs. ETM? The average Israeli with 2 kids will drive irrespective, and understandably so as flights to ETH are not cheap when you multiply by 4, and considering the amount of company cars in Israel.
If they designed it correctly, busses won't be not needed, it's not difficult to have planes parked next to the terminal and within a walking distance to the gates, see e.g. HLA, and if they can do it in Africa
But I am primarily talking about domestic travel. To the person whose trip is 8 hours along ( on average) the 20 minutes, difference vs VDA does matters less. Keep in these are either Jewish tourists or low costs tourists, given the quality of Eilat's resorts and that Eilat has little to offer on top of its (limited in length) beaches.
It does not matter much that the terminal is mid-runway, as larger planes still will be exiting the runway towards its end. On top of that, the runway is considerably longer than ETH.
And it is nice of you to bring African airports as an example. This is exactly what ETM is - an African airport. Waste of public funds and poor infrastructure.