Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: London, UK / (TLV), Israel
Programs: BA Gold (GGL/CCR), *A Gold - TAP, SkyTeam E+, IHG Diamond AMB, HH Diamond, Sixt PL, GE/TSA Pre
Posts: 1,663
Craz,
The main issue is the NON-open skies agreement that’s coming from the Israeli govt at the moment. The travel agents have been begging ELAL/Israel to let Lufthansa/Delta/Continental to allow more flights in but Israel has just said NO. The result is premium prices for seats, especially as you said around chagim (Holiday Times). You know currently the cheapest tickets from LHR-TLV on the days leading up to Passover are around $800! Flight time is anything from 3hrs 55mins to 4hrs 25mins!!! You can still pick up $999 tickets from JFK!!. Hopefully as EL AL have mentioned they should be a major expansion within the airline with the purchase of 10 new aircraft 777/787 though those (787) won't be in the fleet for 5 years. Also it looks as if they're going to have to give into LH/CO and the rest of them on the open skies agreement soon anyway.