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The Israeli Airports Authority must inform airlines, by June 16, of canceling their flights to Israel in the event that there is no solution to the aircraft parking at Ben Gurion Airport in Lod, due to the presence of dozens of American fueling planes at the airport.
Subsequently, the Minister of Transportation, Miri Regev, sent an urgent letter to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday, in which she warned that without immediately removing a portion of the American fueling planes parked at Ben Gurion Airport and Ramon Airport in Eilat, 2.4 million airline tickets would be canceled during the summer season and the Jewish holidays at the beginning of the fall season.
Regev called for the transfer of some American aircraft to Israeli Air Force bases or to airports outside Israel, and warned that among those affected by the lack of travel are thousands of Haredim who intend to travel to annual religious ceremonies in the city of Uman in Ukraine, and who are considered to be voters for the right-wing parties in Netanyahu’s coalition, as the date of the Knesset elections approaches.
Regev’s message comes days after the Director General of the Airports Authority, Sharon Kedmi, warned that if there was a solution to the grounding of fueling planes at Ben Gurion Airport, airlines would have to send notifications to passengers about flight cancellations. He said that “one out of four passengers will receive a cancellation notice” of his flight to Hawiyah.
Regev indicated in her letter to Netanyahu that canceling flights would cause “direct economic damage amounting to billions of shekels to airline companies, and would harm Israel’s credibility as a destination for flights.” She considered that “a widespread cancellation of flights during the summer and holidays during a period when the Israeli public needs calm and normalcy more than ever before will harm national morale and the immunity of citizens.”
According to Regev’s message, 72 American fuel supply planes are parked at Ben Gurion Airport and occupy more than half of the airport’s aircraft parking lots, and 26 other planes are parked at Ramon Airport and occupy 90% of the aircraft parking lots there.
Regev had sent a similar letter to Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, last May 26, in which she said that the American fuel supply planes parked at Ben Gurion Airport, due to the war on Iran, were causing severe damage to civilian activity at the airport, especially in the wake of the return of foreign airlines to fly flights to Israel, and demanded the immediate evacuation of these planes and their transfer to military airports.
In her letter to Netanyahu, today, she called on the Air Force to instruct the Air Force to evacuate some of its warplanes to civilian airstrips across the country, in order to provide places for American aircraft. She said that the Airports Authority is ready to provide civilian airstrips in Rosh Pina, Megiddo, Sde Teman, and Ein Yahav.
