European aviation regulator lifts recommendation to avoid Israeli airspace

The European Union’s transportation authority on Wednesday canceled its order recommending against airlines flying through Israeli airspace, which it had instituted last week amid the new Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Instead, the agency suggested that airlines continuously monitor the situation and exercise caution.

“The European Commission and European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have updated the Conflict Zone Information Bulletin (CZIB) for Israel issued on September 28. The revised CZIB recommends air operators to implement a stringent monitoring process and risk assessment for each flight when intending to operate within the airspace of Israel,” it said.

“The recommendation is valid until October 31 and can be reviewed earlier and adapted or withdrawn subject to the revised assessment,” it added.

EASA had issued a warning on September 28 “not to operate within the airspaces of Lebanon and Israel at all flight levels,” citing “an overall intensification of air strikes and degradation in the security situation.”

The original warning came after Israel confirmed the killing of Hezbollah terror group chief Hassan Nasrallah, in a massive airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut. It was originally slated to be in effect through October 31.

The Transportation Ministry hailed the EU’s revision on Wednesday as “a dramatic achievement of Transportation Minister Miri Regev, after her meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and [the Hungarian] Minister of EU Affairs.”

It was not immediately clear whether Regev’s meeting in Budapest earlier this month indeed played a role in the move, though she has made a public effort to reverse the advisory, including the trip.

Regev tweeted a photo of herself with Hungarian President Viktor Orban, lamenting the “mountains of muck and poison” aimed at her for her recent trip to Budapest to lobby for the reverse of the advisory.

Last Tuesday evening, as Iran launched a 200-strong ballistic missile attack on Israel, Regev was photographed outside a Budapest jewelers, sparking domestic criticism. She claimed that the photo was framed to make her look like she was shopping when she was only passing outside.

נתחיל מהסוף הטוב: רשות התעופה של האיחוד האירופי ביטלה את החלטתה לאסור טיסות לישראל ובקרוב החברות האירופאיות יחזרו לטוס ארצה. הררי רפש ורעל הוטחו ברשתות כלפיי על נסיעת הבזק שקיימתי בשבוע שעבר להונגריה >>> pic.twitter.com/dusNnvMDSr

— מירי רגב (@regev_miri) October 9, 2024

Despite the EU’s change, the large majority of European airlines were still not flying to Israel, having canceled their flights independently before the EU guidance.

Among the predominantly non-European foreign airlines still flying to and from Israel are Etihad, FlyDubai, Smartwings, Ethiopian Airlines, Air Seychelles and Uzbekistan Airlines — a mere fraction, however, of the more than a hundred that regularly passed through Ben Gurion Airport before war broke out last October.