Ryanair restarts ticket sales for Tel Aviv from end of March

Ryanair begins selling tickets for flights to and from Tel Aviv for a number of destinations, as the budget airline signals its intention to renew the route from the end of March.

The airline, like most others, canceled flights to Israel amid the multifront war that began when the Hamas terror group attacked the Jewish state on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 251 hostages.

Since the outbreak of the war, foreign airlines have repeatedly canceled and resumed their flights to and from Israel.

Amid the drop in flights, Israel closed Terminal 1, angering low-cost carriers by forcing them to use the full-cost Terminal 3.

Asked last week whether he expects Ben Gurion Airport’s Terminal 1 to reopen, chief executive Eddie Wilson of subsidiary Ryanair DAC said, “We would hope that they would take the sensible decision to open that.”

In recent months, US airlines and a majority of European carriers completely stopped flying to Israel.

That has left Israel’s national El Al as the only airline flying from Tel Aviv on direct routes to North America. The lack of competition has driven up airfares by 100 percent, and in some periods by much more.

Amid the high prices, Israeli lawmakers agreed earlier this month to make legal changes to canceled flight compensation rights for air passengers to help ease the financial costs of disruptions during the war period and help bring back foreign airlines to the country.