El Al
Israeli Finance Ministry rejects El Al airline’s request for $350 million loan
Israel’s national airline says that state support is “essential” to survive the coronavirus pandemic, and will appeal the decision to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
First of 11 planes bringing vital medical supplies from China to Israel touches down
El Al flights will land at a rate of two per day until all 20 tons of medical equipment, including 900,000 surgical masks, 500,00 protective suits and several ventilators, have been delivered.
It will continue to bring back Israelis stranded abroad and use its passenger planes to transport cargo.
According to Gonen Usishkin, 85 percent of El Al’s workers are on unpaid leave, and the company submitted a solvency plan to the Finance Ministry.
El Al is reportedly preparing flights to four more destinations, including Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica and another one to India, to bring more Israeli travelers home. It may also send an aircraft to Thailand for 150 nationals stranded there.
El Al has laid off employees and drastically cut its operations, cutting flights from 47 destinations to six that include New York, Newark, Paris, London, Toronto and Johannesburg.
After the Israeli Health Ministry recommended citizens not to travel abroad, El Al is seeing a significant drop in passengers to Vienna, Budapest, Brussels and Frankfurt.
The Israeli airliner has reported to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that the epidemic could cost $70 million in lost revenue from January to April.
El Al suspends flights to China due to coronavirus outbreak
The Israeli national airline follows British Airways, United, American, Air Asia, Finnair, Air India and Lufthansa in cancelling flights due to the epidemic • Flights to Beijing to resume on March 25.
A passenger pens a note of gratitude after an unexpected Shabbat in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The flight from Ben-Gurion International Airport to Melbourne will take approximately 17 hours, according to the airline, making it one of El Al’s longest direct routes.
Blood tests showed that Rotem Amitai, 43, had received only one of two required vaccination shots against the highly contagious disease, of which there have been nearly 4,300 cases in Israel this year.
