Low-cost carrier Ryanair follows British Airways in dropping Israel flights until August

Popular Irish low-cost airline Ryanair on Wednesday extended its suspension of flight services to Tel Aviv until July 31, following the Houthi missile strike near Ben Gurion Airport at the beginning of May.

Ryanair joins British Airways in deciding to stay away for the peak summer season, leaving thousands of Israelis to scramble to find new flights, raising the prospects of higher travel costs and limited seat availability.

Some 200,000 tickets are estimated to have been annulled in all due to the flood of flight cancellations by airlines, according to Channel 12 news, with summer vacations thrown into doubt for many.

“Ryanair has regrettably been forced to cancel flights to/from Tel Aviv,” the airline said in a statement. “Ryanair apologizes for these cancellations, which are beyond our control, and passengers are advised to download the Ryanair app to check for the latest flight updates.”

The announcement came after Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said last week that the low-cost carrier was “losing patience” with repeated security disruptions at Ben Gurion Airport and could consider moving aircraft to service alternative destinations.

“The decision means that British Airways and Ryanair are rerouting all their planes for the summer to other destinations like Rome or Paris, as they don’t know what will happen in Israel in terms of the security situation, and they don’t want to miss out on the high summer season,” Ophir Tours chief marketing officer Neta Gafni told The Times of Israel. “They prefer to cancel the Israel route as they know that they are going to be able to fill seats with European passengers because it’s high season.”

“For Israelis, Ryanair is among the most popular airlines with which to book holidays, as they are low cost… and they fly to many destinations,” noted Gafni.

Although passengers booked with Ryanair are entitled to get a full refund for their canceled flight tickets, many will have already paid for accommodation and other expenses abroad, which are often non-refundable, Gafni added.

After a ballistic missile from Yemen impacted within the airport premises on May 4, most foreign airlines canceled their routes servicing Israel’s main international airport. The Houthi missile impacted in a grove of trees alongside an access road close to Terminal 3, several hundred meters (yards) from the airport control tower.

Since then, a host of foreign airlines have repeatedly extended the cancellation of flights to and from the country, leaving many Israelis stranded overseas and looking for alternative flights.

The Lufthansa group — whose carriers also include SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Eurowings — said Monday it was extending the cancellation of flight services until at least June 15, from the previously announced date of June 8. Other carriers extending their flight suspensions since May 4 include Latvian airline AirBaltic, easyJet, United Airlines, Iberia and Transavia.

Among the few foreign airlines that have recently resumed flight services to Israel are Air France, Delta, Wizz Air, Ethiopian Airlines, Etihad Airways and Greece’s Aegean Airlines.

“Close by and cheap destinations like Greece, Cyprus and Albania will be more popular destinations for Israelis, as well as some countries in Eastern Europe such as Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, as there are more flight options,” said Gafni. “Travel to other destinations, such as the US, will be hard to plan, as it is difficult to trust that even those foreign airlines that have come back will stay.”

Since the war in the Gaza Strip broke out in October 2023, foreign airlines have repeatedly canceled and resumed their flights to and from Israel.

The ongoing security situation, which at the height of the war included rocket and drone attacks from Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and Iraq, plus two large missile barrages from Iran, has led to Israeli airlines, chiefly El Al, operating at a near-monopoly on some routes and setting exorbitant ticket prices.

“The current situation will benefit Israeli airlines and might prompt them to introduce new routes,” said Gafni. “However, high demand and low supply of seats will drive up ticket prices of local airlines, whether it is El Al or Arkia and other local charter airlines.”

The cost of El Al round-trip tickets from Tel Aviv to Larnaca in Cyprus for the beginning of July has almost doubled, at an average of $326, compared to the same period in 2023 before the outbreak of the war, according to Ophir Tours.

With local airline Arkia, round-trip flight tickets to Larnaca for July were selling for an average of  $341 (compared to $246 in July 2023). Israir was offering Larnaca round-trip tickets in July for an average of $307 (compared with $259 in July 2023). At the same time, with Hungary’s Wizz Air, round-trip tickets to Larnaca at the beginning of July cost $141 on average compared with $181 in July 2023.