Thanks to Israel entering the US Visa Waiver Program, El Al is gearing up for what it expects will be a record setting year for flight traffic between North America and Israel.
The airline will be adding a 4th daily flight between JFK and Tel Aviv.
The new flight will start in June 2024, departing from JFK at 2:30pm and arriving into Tel Aviv at 8am the next day. It departs from Tel Aviv at 7:30am and arrives into JFK at 12:20pm the same day.
Unlike the other 3 daily JFK flights operated by a 787-9 Dreamliner, the new flight will be operated by the smaller 787-8 Dreamliner.
For those keeping score at home, here are the 112 weekly flights currently scheduled to fly between North America and Israel next summer from 12 gateway airports:
- Atlanta: 7 weekly flights on Delta (A350-900L)
- Boston: 3 weekly flights on Delta (A330-900neo) and 3 weekly flights on El Al (787-8)
- Chicago: 4 weekly flights on United (787-8)
- Fort Lauderdale: 2 weekly flights on El Al (787-8)
- JFK: 7 weekly flights on American (777-200), 7 weekly flights on Delta (A330-900neo), 22 weekly flights on El Al (787-8 and 787-9)
- Los Angeles: 6 weekly flights on El Al (787-9).
- Miami:Â 5 weekly flights on El Al (787-9).
- Montreal: 4 weekly flights on Air Canada (787-9).
- Newark: 14 weekly flights on United (787-10), 11 weekly flights on El Al (787-9)
- San Francisco: 7 weekly flights on United (777-200)
- Toronto: 7 weekly flights on Air Canada (787-9)
- Washington DC:Â 3 weekly flights on United (787-8)
That’s up from 67 flights scheduled in summer 2016, 77 scheduled in summer 2017, 75 scheduled in summer 2018, 95 scheduled in summer 2019, 101 flights were scheduled in summer 2020Â but only 7 operated in summer 2020, and 106 scheduled in summer 2023.
Do you think more flights will be added between North America and Israel next year?
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39 Comments On "Thanks To Visa Waiver Program Entry, El Al Will Add More US Flights Next Year, Roundup Of Record 112 Weekly North America-Israel Flights"
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I still cannot believe a second airline does not fly nonstop from Los Angeles……How is this possible??? (I know it’s an ultra long haul flight with limited connectivity but still)
1. It’s notoriously difficult to make money on ultra long haul flights.
2. No airline has a dominant hub in LA. United has one in SFO, which is where it would much prefer to route west coast traffic through.
That being said, I do think that Delta or United will eventually add LAX-TLV. It’s just a question of how long it will take to get there and whether other fortress hubs are higher up on the totem pole (Detroit for Delta, Houston for United, etc).
why is it difficult to make money on ultra-haul flights?
They require a ton of fuel (including extra fuel to carry the extra fuel!) and they utilize a lot of airplane hours and time is money when it comes to plane usage. Airlines will always rather serve closer hubs when possible.
NYC-TLV-NYC is 22 hours.
LAX-TLV-LAX is 29 hours.
To offset that, you need to be able to command a strong premium to justify those flights. United can get that in San Francisco due to their fortress hub and corporate traffic there. The excellent connectivity there helps as well. El Al can’t count on domestic feed, but AA, Delta, and United elites all have other routing options to get to Israel on their preferred carriers.
Why not Denver for United?
It’s a much smaller hub and doesn’t really add much to the network given that you can easily connect in EWR, IAD, or ORD.
IAH would add more value than DEN because of Latin America connections and being a much larger hub.
You think Detroit will get a non stop Delta flight to TLV in the near future?
Or El Al. It’s a decent possibility.
What are the chances FLL turns into a daily flight?
That will all come down to demand. If people fill up the FLL flights, they will certainly expand there.
What about Vegas? Not returning?
1 flight a week routes are never sustainable.
…and still no service to TLV from PHL
That’s due to AA’s decades-long TLV incompetence.
Maybe a new market for Elal if they want to add more northeast flights and can’t get a slot pair at EWR.
Possibly with DL alliance adding ORD makes more sense though.
EWR isn’t slot restricted.
Delta has no connectivity in Chicago. Detroit could make sense though for Delta or El Al.
Why does only elal add flights? And did people realy not come because a visa?
It’s still early. Most airlines will wait until they see what demand looks like and that won’t happen for months from now when the program launches.
Yes, millions of Israelis were not able to get a visa.
May I add that most airlines, without having a local Israeli presence don’t really know what to anticipate while Elal, with feet on the ground in Israel can have a better picture of the situation
Dallas? he said hopefully
Seems very unlikely due to AA’s TLV incompetence.
I’d bet on Houston before Dallas.
Pretty please!!
Don’t understand why Aa to tlv is so incompetent we really need phl to tlv, between lkwd Baltimore and phili ppl there’s a huge demand
And of course Toronto…
One flight a day on one airline (AC) is ridiculous.
Late to the party, but EWR is closer to Lakewood than PHL, and IAD is closer to Baltimore. (Depending on traffic, of course.) A PHL flight would basically just be servicing PHL (or whatever connections run through there) plus whoever finds a cheaper flight than EWR or IAD has to offer.
the 730am leaving tlv will be a boon for some, bit of niche timing, the only nonstop flight betwwen 1am and 1030 am [elal sometimes..]
Maybe we can get a Hawaiian Airlines flight from one of their hubs 🙂
@dan I see you mention a few times in the comments that AA doesn’t have from xyz because of their decades long incompetence. I thought that they have log resolved it?
AA JFK-TLV
They canceled PHL-TLV in 2016, after merging with USAir which had said it was their most profitable route.
They canceled MIA-TLV in 2023 after moving it from 3 weekly flights to daily flights in 2022.
They announced and sold tickets for DFW-TLV pre-COVID and post-COVID and failed to actually launch it.
They’re barely hanging in the Israeli market with JFK-TLV, which they said was only possible thanks to the JetBlue alliance, which is now gone. TBD on what happens there.
No other airline has had so many TLV failures.
AA needs to have an earlier JFK-TLV flight on Thursdays, around 4pm to get people in before shabbat. They currently don’t have this and are loosing many business travelers.
I wish LY would have chosen an evening flight ex TLV. But my guess is that morning landing slot in JFK ate harder to come by
Definitely slot related.
It goes back much further—when they took over TWA—then the only US carrier on the route—and promptly dropped TLV.
True.
According to AA reps, they are really profiting well on this route.
Same thing they said about PHL and MIA to TLV before dropping those.
Do we have any idea why they have this ongoing pattern? Many of the deep fare cuts—like the current one of ~$640–begin with them—then UA copies. If they are truly filling planes, why would they cut fares?
The Visa Waiver Program (VWP) will be revoked sooner or later, as the overstay rate among Israelis will be over 2%.
Flew today from TLV to JFK, the purser a senior female told me to enjoy one of the last flights on American, because likely after Hanukah this flight will be history, and not to be replaced from PHL neither.