Posted By Jessica Weisman-Pitts
Posted on November 27, 2024
LONDON (Reuters) -EasyJet will not rush to resume flights to Tel Aviv after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed group Hezbollah came into effect on Wednesday, the airline’s incoming CEO told reporters.
Airlines around the world suspended flights to Israel and some other locations in the Middle East in the wake of the war in Gaza and the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah spilling into Lebanon.
“I think obviously we would love to fly again to Israel, but we will continue to have a look at the situation,” Kenton Jarvis said. “It’s great that ceasefire has been announced, but we’d need to see kind of more stability sustained in the Middle East, before we thought about flying.”
Earlier, Emirates Airline President Tim Clark said he was pleased about the ceasefire, adding the airline could go back to flying to Beirut “sooner rather than later.
A Ryanair spokesperson said the airline did not plan on resuming operations to Israel until March 31 at the earliest, and a decision to resume operations to and from Jordan from December was still under discussion.
Air France also said it has now extended its suspension of flights to Tel Aviv to Dec. 31 and has suspended flying to Beirut until Jan. 5. “The operations will resume on the basis of an assessment of the situation on the ground,” a spokesperson for the company said.
A number of airlines have shifted their network capacity away from the Middle East to other routes, which could make it difficult to shift it back quickly, even if tensions in the region diminish.
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska, Conor Humphries and Makini Brice; Writing by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Louise Heavens and Alex Richardson)
