British Airways was the latest airline to announce that it was suspending its flights to Israel due to security concerns in the region. The company said its flights were suspended until August 28. “Safety is always our top priority,” the airline said on Sunday. Air France and KLM had also previously suspended their flights to and from Ben Gurion Airport.
The Israelis quickly realized that an attack in the region would immediately lead to foreign airlines leaving the country. Moreover, the local population seemed to be used to the situation.
Hadas Kanti, 24, from Jerusalem, was supposed to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight to take a big trip to India with a friend. But just 10 minutes before departure, everything changed. “Suddenly they stopped the flights and told us that our plane had landed in Cairo – no flight,” she said. “It was disappointing because we were ready to go. We arrived at 2 a.m., went through all the formalities and made it to the gate. We had no idea that there was chaos, and then suddenly, at 5 a.m., they announced that there were no flights until 10 a.m.”
At the departure board on the third floor, groups of passengers waited anxiously to see what would happen to their flights. Some were “lucky” to experience only delays, while others saw their flights removed from the board entirely. Among them were siblings Shani (28) and Il (26) Porano from Kibbutz Sasa in northern Israel, who now live in Tel Aviv. They were supposed to fly to Italy with the rest of their family that afternoon to visit more distant relatives, but they quickly realized that was not going to happen.
“We were really looking forward to this trip because it fits perfectly into our work schedule,” Shani said. “When we woke up in the morning, we saw a lot of notifications from the kibbutz on our phones. Still, we thought the flight would go ahead, but when we got here, it was canceled. It’s hard. Our father’s entire family lives in Rome and we haven’t seen our grandfather and uncles for a long time. We’re trying to find other flights to get there.”
Due to the closure of the airspace, flights to the airport have been diverted to Ramon and even to Cairo. Several foreign airlines have suspended flights to and from Israel, and of the 360 international flights scheduled for today, 50 have so far been cancelled.
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Other airlines that have announced flight suspensions include Etihad (UAE), Aegean (Greece), Transavia (Netherlands), Corendon (Turkey), Wizz Air (Hungary) and Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopia), which later announced they would resume flights on Sunday evening.
