Doors Closing

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle...or-2023-02-23/

This is a mega announcement for LY, countless new opportunities with various Asia & OZ(MEL?) routes, including reduced flight times and fares.

Supposedly, that is equally a meaningful development for other airlines, whether Israeli or not

M60_to_LGA

This is great news! This should facilitate a lot of interesting new routes - although perhaps mostly not for LY, given their management issues. Still, hopefully this means LY will finally get the Tokyo route off the ground.

I assume we'll see more flights to India and Thailand, and maybe get Colombo in there as well, given the potential tourist demand.

I believe there were rumors before covid that Singapore Airlines was considering flying to Israel; now would be a propitious moment to dust off those plans. This would seem to make Australia flights doable - although I'd bet Qantas is better able to capitalize on that opportunity than LY. Maybe we'll see Manila from Philippine Airlines?

I'd personally love to see TPE added as a destination, but I'm not holding my breath for that.

rafi2k6

This development is irrelevant to the Tokyo flights, they'll still use the norther route over Turkey. Flying the southern route is far longer.

Singapore would probably do well in the TLV market, but the main blocker there is Indonesia. Indonesia will not allow overflight if the destination or origin in Israel.

More flights to India seems quite possible. Bangalore and Goa come to mind.

Sri Lanka seems like a good possibility as well, I could totally see Sri Lankan Airlines operating 3 - 5 weekly.

The Philippines has been long rumored, but never actually materializes. I'm sure there are a number of commercial reasons why, but it does indeed seem like an obvious hole to fill in TLV's route network.

Finally, Australia. Either LY or QF could make MEL work. I think it might actually be preferable for LY to operate the route & codeshare with QF for onward connections in Australia & south pacific. The issue a route like that will face is the myriad of 1-stop options available via DXB & AUH. LY will not be able to match EK's or EY's pricing if a bidding war were to break out. Still, I think there is enough demand there that if things are structured correctly the Kangaroo Route could work well!

GUWonder

LY talked about TLV MEL service:

https://www.executivetraveller.com/n...urne-australia

But is that the best use of a 787, given shorter flight routes mean more seats can be sold each week than with a much longer flight route.

yosithezet

Agree that this likely has little impact on Japan or TPE.

Curious how/why Sri Lanka would justify 3-5 per week versus 2 for tourists during holiday seasons?

rafi2k6

There are a lot of Sri Lankan nationals in Israel (we hired one to take care of my grandmother, she was lovely) and a lot of potential for tourism in both directions.
Sri Lanka's economy is largely based on agriculture, an area that Israel has expertise in and could help optimize there.
The textile trade is also a huge economic driver in Sri Lanka, and heaven Israelis love shopping...

So those factors combined with tourism, I think that 3 to 5 weekly frequencies could work between Tel Aviv & Colombo.
The route would have to be served by EL AL's 787's or Sri Lankan's A321 NEO's. Probably better suited to the NEO unless LY can fill the cargo hold on a Dreamliner.

Doors Closing

And LY to MEL it is:

https://www.executivetraveller.com/n...urne-australia

ahopkins767

Philippine Airlines actually ran direct for the winter 2022 season so that’s been done and dusted. Didn’t continue into 2023 though.

M60_to_LGA

That's an interesting article, and this bit jumped out at me:

So LY is trying to make TLV an international connecting hub? How does that work given the security screening issues? Also, what is this "very smooth connecting process" we're talking about here? From everything I've read, including on FT, there's just about no connecting process at TLV at all.

Am I alone in thinking this is a pipe dream?

shuly

I don't believe international transfers are possible at TLV. And even when they were possible, pre-Covid, they were the opposite of "smooth", let alone "very smooth".

Shuly

Springyboy

4X-ECF taking the long way today as LY87 - probably denied access by Muscat FIR

rafi2k6

Very strange.
LY-81 took the direct route.

M60_to_LGA

LY overflies Somalia now? How does that work?

GUWonder

Somaliland and Somalia’s leaders had been warming up to Netanyahu for quite some time. They wanted included in the 2020 deals following from the 2018 meeting between Netanyahu and the then-Sultan of Oman, but the US Admin at the time didn’t like the optics of that. The US Admin now, via the Emiratis and Saudis, are more comfortable with a public warming of relations between the Somali majority parts on the Horn and Israel. This flying may be a sign of that, if it is an accurate representation of the flight path. The USAF in nearby Djibouti also goes flying around there.

M60_to_LGA

Who even controls the airspace in Somalia? Looking at the Mogadishu airport's Wikipedia page, there seem to be several legitimate airlines that fly there - including TK and Qatar. I guess there's some form of coordination between Mogadishu, Somaliland, and the ICAO to make this possible, then?

I guess I thought that Somalia was off-limits for overflights pretty much across the board, but apparently not!