SJOGuy

Same question: Where will the connections be on the other end? For political reasons, TLV is not a hub for the Middle East. Okay. You could connect to the TLV-AMM flight on OW partner RJ. Beyond that?

SJOGuy

A significant portion of the target market cannot travel on Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath, which runs from sunset Friday to nightfall Saturday. A Sunday DFW-TLV flight works.. A Sunday TLV-DFW will not, unless the plane left DFW late Saturday night, well after dark. It would have to be late enough Saturday night that an observant Jew would have time to get to DFW and get checked in after dark. They couldn't leave their house until after dark. That's going to be tough during the summer. A Thursday overnight DFW-TLV flight creates possible problems too. That same market segment tries not to cut things too close, and wants to be home well before Shabbat comes in at sunset on Friday night. What if there are delays? That means with only 3 x weekly service, AA might be limiting itself from DFW to Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed.

Such are the considerations of flying to and from Israel. Granted, AA is not LY, which does not fly on Shabbat at all. Be bold, AA, and eventually bump this up to daily service, like UA does. That way, you can absorb the issue of passengers who can't use your flights on the weekend. Things can even out for you.

N830MH

Actually, El Al is a hub, not other airlines who have a hub.

SJOGuy

TLV is El Al's headquarters, yes. But for political reasons, El Al cannot operate a regional Middle East hub. You're not going to connect at TLV to BEY, DXB, MCT ... We can go down a whole list of airports in the region you cannot fly to from TLV. That's my question: Where are you going to connect to on the other end?

Ldnn1

milyoner

American will resume its service to Tel Aviv from its largest hub in Dallas/Fort Worth on Sept. 9. The flights will operate year-round three times per week on a Boeing 787-9 and will be available for bookings beginning Oct. 10.

AA will start selling tickets beginning on Oct 10, but the flight will start on September 9th? Flights until Oct 10th will fly empty?

SJOGuy

The service starts Sept. 9, 2020, not next month.

MarJon

I remember seeing a report lately that SFO-TLV is UA's 3rd highest J-Class revenue! A great deal of the "profitable" revenue will be from High Tech.

My guess is now that Douggie has reopened the TLV door with DFW, PHL and ORD flights will soon be added. That way it keeps the local staff busy for 2 full shifts.

joeyE

Google the Ben Gurion flight schedule. There's ~175 flights that depart from tonight to tomorrow night (on Shabbos). Seems the non-observant market is vibrant & healthy to where a foreign carrier doesn't need to cater to them to make a profit.

MarJon

Regardless, I'll fly west to go east RSW-DFW-TLV instead of having to drive to MIA fly BA with a mad dash through LHR in a 90 minute terminal change. MAD is fine, but typically we fly PE and not all flight MAD-TLV have PE seating.

econometrics

joeyE

You'd be fired if you didn't show some risk management when starting a new route with no history.
I don't think AA route planning execs lose sleep at night being scared.

United announced EWR-JNB. JNB has double the metro population of TLV. US started w 3 flights/week as well. Similar flight times.
It's only 1 data point but from that perspective American is taking a way larger risk then United. I don't think they're scared..

econometrics

Phasers

Tell me about it.

As a frequent traveler to BEY based on DFW, this is essentially an "awwww so close". Guess I will stick with Qatar for the most part.

MarJon

Actually you can fly LY to Cairo and Amman. You could also connect with OW's Royal Jordanian airlines to Amman and possibly connect with S7.