Three weeks after the attack on the flydubai flight to Tel Aviv, all flights between the two cities remain suspended amid disagreements over aviation security measures between Israeli and Emirati authorities.
The popular Emirati carrier, which used to operate ten daily flights to Tel Aviv, has suspended service on the route through at least November 15, with reservations currently unavailable until the end of the year.
Israeli carriers were also previously scheduled to resume service to Dubai in November, but are not flying the route, which served as a major gateway for connecting flights to the Far East and Asia.
Etihad Airways is currently the only airline flying to Israel from the United Arab Emirates, having recently tripled its Abu Dhabi-Tel Aviv schedule to six daily flights.
The renewal of flights to Dubai has been unexpectedly delayed, causing airfares to spike for Israeli travelers heading to the United Arab Emirates. Ticketed passengers are being rerouted through other cities.
Israeli security officials are reportedly seeking to station their own security officials in Dubai, as they do in many countries, and to install X-ray screening stations at the airport to check luggage being loaded on the planes.
The two Emirati carriers gained international prominence for flying to Israel almost uninterrupted throughout the three-year regional war, with the UAE serving as a hub for onward travel when U.S. and European carriers were not flying to Tel Aviv.
Israel’s Transportation Ministry acknowledged earlier this month that it had failed to vet international flight crews arriving in the country, and relied entirely on airlines to confirm their crews had passed background security checks.
The security lapse came to light following the Sept. 30 attack on the flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv.
“It is both shocking and surprising that the Israeli Transportation Ministry has not come up with a mechanism to allow flydubai to resume operations,” Mark Feldman, CEO of Jerusalem’s Ziontours told JNS on Tuesday. “Something is rotten in our supervising agencies and the Israeli consumer, once more is paying the price.”
