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American Airlines delays return to Israel until April due to Iran war

The Dallas-based carrier will restart flights from New York to Israel on April 23.

An American Airlines plane. Photo by Alan Wilson via Wikimedia Commons.
An American Airlines plane. Photo by Alan Wilson via Wikimedia Commons.

American Airlines announced on Wednesday that it was pushing back its return to Israel until the end of April due to the war against Iran.

The Dallas-based carrier said it would restart flights from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Israel on April 23.

The legacy carrier has been scheduled to relaunch flights to Tel Aviv at the end of March, ahead of the busy Passover and Easter holiday season.

“We are working closely with our partner airlines to assist customers traveling between the Middle East and European cities with service to the U.S. during this period,” the airline said in a statement.

American Airlines suspended flights to Israel right after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered two years of war in Gaza as well as with Iranian terror proxies. The airline halted flights entirely in the last two years, unlike rivals United Airlines and Delta Air Lines.

United and Delta have suspended flights until the end of the month.

There are no international carriers currently flying to Israel.

American has also suspended service to Doha, Qatar, until May.

Etgar Lefkovits is an award-winning international journalist who is an Israel correspondent and feature news writer at JNS. A native of Chicago, he has two decades of experience in journalism having served as Jerusalem correspondent in one of the world’s most demanding positions. He is now based in Tel Aviv.
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