1 week ago
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Israir A330-200 LLHZ2805, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Israir started flying between JFK and Tel Aviv last month and planned to ramp up to 6 weekly flights on the route. Arkia, El Al, and Israir all avoid Shabbos flights on the route.
It was a late entrant, opting to purchase 2 ex-American A330-200s and operate its own flights, rather than a wet-lease operation, which allowed Arkia to start flying back in February 2025.
The timing was far from optimal for Israie. Delta and United also resumed flights between NYC and Tel Aviv last month, meaning a record number of carriers operated the route.
While fares were initially elevated, earlier this week, we shared a roundup of one-way flights between JFK and Tel Aviv from just $370 on Arkia and Israir. The one-way pricing in both directions has been a game changer for the route.
One DDF member wrote an Israir trip report and shared that there were just 30 passengers on his Israir flight.
I noted then that Israir flights to the US won’t be around for long if they can’t get those load factors up by an order of magnitude.
And now, the airline has removed all Tuesday flights between JFK and Tel Aviv in both directions from its schedule. Passengers who were booked on Tuesdays are being offered a refund or a flight on Monday or Wednesday.
I assume passengers with flights within 14 days can also claim compensation under the Israel Aviation Services Law, which is currently 3,670 shekels ($1,175).
Israir still plans on operating 5 weekly flights this winter and next summer between JFK and Tel Aviv. That’s more than Arkia’s 4 weekly flights this winter, but fewer than Arkia’s 6 weekly flights that it operated last summer and plans to operate next summer.
Israir is still advertising that it plans to fly nonstop between Miami and Tel Aviv, where competition is much lighter ever since American ceded the market to El Al. We’ll have to wait and see if they will actually launch the route.
Israir doesn’t appear to have a media relations department, but we have previously communicated directly with CEO Uri Sirkis about the airline’s plans. We reached out to him earlier today for comment on the Tuesday cancellations and whether they signal the route is underperforming compared to its expectations. We haven’t received a response yet, but we’ll update this post if we do.
Do you think Israir can continue operating the JFK-Tel Aviv route?
