Leading International Airline Will Fly to Eilat, But Not Tel Aviv
by Zack Pyzer / Tazpit News Agency
A view of Eilat. Photo: Ester Inbar via Wikimedia Commons.
Budget airline Ryanair will be launching flights to Israel’s southern tourist city Eilat, starting this coming winter.
Tickets for the six weekly flights are touted to start at €30 each way, but flights will not stop in Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, which serves the vast majority of Israelis traveling abroad.
Ryanair’s David O’Brien said, “We will strengthen our presence in Israel as time goes by. Eilat is a very unique tourist destination like Morocco and the Canary Islands, and we are certain that we will fill the planes.”
Israel’s Ministry of Tourism is reportedly paying a €45 subsidy per tourist flying to Eilat, after tourism figures have failed to bounce back in the wake of last summer’s war with Hamas.
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Russian tourists in particular are being courted, with the country regularly being the source of the highest number of tourists to the Jewish State.
Ryanair had been considering flying to Ben Gurion, but they stated that due to the terms set by Israel’s airport authority, other routes were at present more profitable.
