Israel’s national carriers are having a moment. El Al, Arkia, and Israir have continuously operated flights since October 7th, while foreign airlines have come and gone. That reliability has allowed them to command a premium as their flights have routinely sold out.
Israel’s Channel 13 is reporting that Wizz Air is now considering opening a base in Israel. Israel’s Minister of Transportation, Miri Regev, and Wizz Air CEO and co-founder, Jozsef Varadi, announced the potential deal, which may be finalized by July.
Details are sparse, but the article refers to employing Israeli crews, flying domestic routes such as Tel Aviv to Eilat, and adding new destinations including Morocco and India.
Wizz Air is an ultra-low-cost carrier based in Budapest, but has subsidiary airlines Wizz Air Malta, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi, and Wizz Air UK based in those respective locations. Those subsidiaries allow Wizz Air to operate flights with local crews and to destinations they wouldn’t otherwise have rights to operate.
I’d guess that the negotiations aim to establish a Wizz Air Israel subsidiary, which would enable the airline to operate with local crews, offer domestic flights, and offer flights between Israel and non-European destinations.
For example, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi is 51% owned by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, and 49% by Wizz Air. It calls Abu Dhabi its base airport and operates services to dozens of cities. I’d expect to see a similar arrangement in Israel.
Wizz Air operates exclusively with narrow-body A320/A321 aircraft, so it won’t be competing with El Al’s long-haul network, but it would provide strong competition for the existing national carriers on short to medium-haul routes and could quickly surpass the size of Arkia and Israir.
Wizz Air and its subsidiaries currently operate or plan on operating flights between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi, Athens, Bucharest, Budapest, Heraklion, Iasi, Krakow, Larnaca, London/LGW, London/LTN, Milan/MXP, Naples, Rhodes, Rome, Sofia, Varna, Vienna, Vilnius, and Warsaw. Expect that list to include more African, Asian, and European destinations if an Israeli base is opened.
Of course, the real question will be how it operates during times of crisis. Will it act like an Israeli carrier and fly during times of war? Or will it act like a foreign carrier and pause service? My assumption is that with an Israeli base and crews, it would be able to continue flying uninterrupted, as union issues and insurance issues are often what cause airlines to pause flights. But if it did have to pause service due to political reasons, it would lose credibility in the Israeli market.
This is certainly an interesting development! What do you think of a potential Wizz Air Israel airline? Will you fly on it, or will you stick to non-low-cost airlines or with other wholly owned Israeli airlines?
HT: yandmk
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36 Comments On "WOW! Is Israel About To Get Another National Carrier?"
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Will they fly to Russia from Israel?
Their service to Russia was suspended due to the war, but when that ends, it’s a strong possibility.
Which war ? Ukraine/Russia or Israel/Gaza?
5th,
Air Haifa are the 4th
Well, 4th with Jet service. 😀
Does an all-propeller airline really count as a national carrier in the 21st century? 😉
I am also a carrier. I have two feet!
Business class?
More importantly, decent mehadrin kosher food?
It’s an ultra-low-cost carrier. Single cabin service and bring your own food!
I assume they’ll sell some mehadrin snacks onboard if they have a TLV base, though mehadrin food from TLV is very subpar across the board.
Isn’t Air Haifa #4?
https://www.dansdeals.com/more/news/airline-news/wow-is-israel-about-to-get-a-4th-national-carrier/#comment-1778360
Would be interesting to see if they start selling flights btwn europe and asia connecting in TLV or ETM which is hardly being used and has plenty capacity.
ETM is a tiny airport
What’s the likelihood of this leading to reduced pricing on JFK/EWR – TLV with a stopover?
I think it’s safe to say, highly unlikely.
Would you consider a Transatlantic flight on Spirit? Wizzair is pretty much the same concept. Most people who even consider Spirit to anywhere, typically limit it to flight times of <4 hours.
As a TSA agent once perfectly made an analogy many years ago: "Spirit is basically Greyhound on wings. Here's a cramped seat to get you from point A to Point B. Nothing more."
Scoot airlines flies Singapore to Australia and other long haul international destinations
Norse Atlantic is an Ultra low cost Airline and yet flies laung haul trans-atlantic flights to JFK
WIZ> i wonder what the name implies???
It’s a ULCC so not too likely unless the low cost alliance initiative works out.
It would definitely be great that Israir And Arkia will have to boost their service to compete with a bigger and better low-cost airline
Insurance seems to be a big issue for the non isreali carriers i dont understand though why isreal cant make certin guarantees to the airlines instead of insurance..?
For the crews and unions guarantees are useless
Last I checked, the Israeli government owns 15% of El Al, plus it has some supervoting rights, so the current situation is kind of in its best interest. Making guarantees for foreign airlines would cost it money both in the cost of the guarantees as well as the loss in profitability.
It doesn’t help if transatlantic fears remain high with LL what we need is a competitor el Al Israel based. Can’t one of these billionaires start one? Or maybe Dan Air or
Dan what a deal air and then we’ll see if he takes advantage of pricing errors 🙂
Why did you mention Dan specifically out of all billionaires?
Is Israir or Arkia planning on flying from Newark?
It would definitely be helpful however Newark is limited in gate space so most likely not
Newark has also been having issues with air traffic control, and flights in and out of Newsrk were recently cut back. United was hit significantly by this.
I flew Wizz from Luton (London) to TLV and it was fine. Definitely not El Al quality. Both flights were about 1/2 Arab which feels different than the flights I’ve been taking on the regular from the US to Israel in El Al.
“My assumption is that with an Israeli base and crews, it would be able to continue flying uninterrupted, as union issues and insurance issues are often what cause airlines to pause flights. But if it did have to pause service due to political reasons, it would lose credibility in the Israeli market.”
The Israeli airlines also have anti-missile systems on their planes. I assume Wizz Air’s Israel subsidiary would not.
Also as far as credibility goes, unlike the Israeli airlines, they have to worry more about their brand beyond the Israeli market. So that is something to consider.
My guess is they’ll be somewhere in between – not quite as rigid as El Al in flying no matter how volatile the situation, but not quite as impulsive as the Western carriers in pulling flights at the slightest flare up
Anti missle system?
ElAl used to have flares that’s all. And they newer planes don’t have them anymore.
FYI only SOME of El Al 737 and 777 have the “SkyShield” anti missile defense and non of their dreamliners 787 have it
Personally, I always love stuff like this: “flying domestic routes such as Tel Aviv to Eilat”. Israel only has 3 commercial airports. Talking about the domestic market in Israel is kind of a joke. It’s like talking about the inter-NJ domestic market.
A side note: Not only are NJ and Israel similar in size and total population, they also both have 3 commercial airports that have pretty similar passenger counts.
I fly all the time from DCA to LGA or EWR, about the same driving time as TLV to Eilat.
Great news!
I hope they operate international flights in/out of Eilat.
I remember when ryanair used to operate Bratislava-Eilat.
I think that itg would bring in a lot of Europeans looking for a warm winter holiday as well as a summer beach holiday.
Bluebird is practically an Israeli airline