Three airlines resume flights to Israel

Three airlines have restarted scheduled services to Israel that were halted due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Air Canada, Delta, and German carrier Lufthansa all made good on their promises from last month to begin flights.

The Ben Gurion Airport online flight timetable on Thursday showed a Delta flight from New York landed at 5:14 p.m.

A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt was scheduled to arrive later in the evening, followed by an Air Canada flight from Toronto arriving on Friday morning.

They were joining United Airlines, which never paused its flights to Israel, and Hungary-based budget airliner Wizz that has also already resumed flights.

However, a ban on non-Israelis entering the country remains in place, and Israelis who return must still enter self-quarantine for two weeks.

On May 20, the Israel Airports Authority notified airlines that non-citizens would be barred until at least June 15. The order had been set to expire on May 30.

Almost all air travel to Israel was shut down due to the coronavirus restrictions, with only a handful of flights weekly, including a daily route to Newark, New Jersey, flown by United Airlines.

Israel has rolled back many internal restrictions as infection rates dropped off but limitations on arrivals in the country remain.

In May Delta said it would restart its service with four weekly flights operating to and from the US on Saturday nights, Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays, the airline said at the time.

Lufthansa said last month it would provide a total of six flights a week to Tel Aviv from Frankfurt and Munich, with three flights between each city and Israel.