Airline flight cancellation chaos to Israel is unsustainable - analysis

A recent article at The Jewish Insider noted that US Representative Ritchie Torres (D-NY) has sent a letter to “American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines expressing his concerns over their decisions to suspend flights to Israel without FAA guidance that such flights are unsafe.”

This is an important development because the airline cancellation chaos in Israel has become unsustainable and is needlessly punishing people who fly to and from Israel without proper guidelines or transparency.

I am one of the many people affected recently by these cancellations. I bought tickets on a major US airline in the spring to fly to the US on August 2. The airline canceled the flight around 36 hours before because of “unrest” in the Middle East.

This was the second major round of flight cancellations to Israel. The first occurred after the October 7 attack. In both cases, the cancellations have rewarded terrorist groups. In October, it was because Hamas attacked Israel, and in August, it was due to Iranian and Hezbollah threats.

It’s important to point out that these cancellations were not just for a day or a week, but they are occurring for months. Now it appears these cancellations mean Israel has been cut off from international travel by many airlines for most of 2024.

This is not because Israel’s air defenses are worse than they were in previous wars. In fact, Israel’s air defenses are better. Israel’s Arrow air defense system and David’s Sling have proved themselves in this war. The US has also helped bolster Israel’s defenses.

Yet, despite more support and better systems, international airlines are canceling flights anyway. This didn’t happen in previous wars. Israel fought Hezbollah in 2006 and Hamas in 2009, 2012, and 2014, and also short rounds in 2018 and 2021, and there were no long-term massive cancellations.

The report about Torres’ letter notes that he is saying the suspended flights should stop “in order to prevent the appearance and the substance of discrimination against the Jewish State.” The report notes that “American Airlines announced that it would extend its suspension of flights to Israel through April 2025.”

Torres wrote, “The suspension has been so prolonged and so pervasive that El Al, an Israeli airline, has become the sole carrier offering direct flights from America to Israel. The lack of competition has made air travel to Israel less available and less affordable, putting customers at the mercy of a de facto monopoly that can easily gouge prices with impunity.”

When my family’s flight was canceled in early August, we were not provided with a solution by the airline. Instead, we had to scramble to find an Israeli carrier that would fly us to Athens. Then, we had to stay overnight in Athens and board a German airline that flew us via Munich to Newark.

In essence we ended up spending more than $10,000 dollars on new tickets and a hotel. The solution is not to have Israeli airlines pick up where foreign airlines left off. The prices on Israeli airlines have skyrocketed, making much international travel unaffordable or unpleasant.

Nothing new

There is no transparency or reasoning behind the mass cancellations. The fact that Iran decides to threaten Israel should not become the new norm for travel chaos in Israel. The fact that Hamas chose to begin a genocidal war on Israel was not a good reason for international carriers to punish Israel for the crimes of Hamas.

The decision to cancel the flights is not due to the emergence of a new rocket threat from Hamas. Hamas is now degraded, and its capabilities are weakened. Hezbollah and Iran possess rockets. However, terrorist groups like Hezbollah should not be allowed to dictate to the region where people are allowed to travel. This is handing Hezbollah and Iran a win.

It is clear that the latest war has begun a new trend. The decision by airlines to cancel flights is a new phenomenon. It didn’t happen in previous wars for such a long period of time. The logic behind the cancellations is not clear. There are few affordable alternatives.

Israel is becoming isolated through these decisions, and this is not a good message to send to countries facing terrorist threats or threats by authoritarian regimes. Given the fact that Israel has the best air defenses in the world and is supported by the US and the West, the decision by Western commercial airlines to cancel flights for long periods of time does not bode well.

In the absence of a solution, Israeli airlines should also be required to keep their prices affordable, rather than what appears to have happened when the prices have skyrocketed.