Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) said on Thursday that it was canceling plans to resume service to Israel this fall.
The surprise decision taken by the national airline from Denmark, Norway and Sweden came just a month before the scheduled resumption of service after a nine-year break and bucks the trend of most major international carriers returning to Israel following this winter’s war with Iran.
“Following our latest assessment of operational and commercial factors, we have concluded that the conditions are not right to launch the planned Copenhagen to Tel Aviv service at this time,” SAS said in a statement sent to JNS. “Tel Aviv remains an important destination for SAS and our customers, and we will continue to monitor developments and evaluate the opportunity to launch the route in the future.”
American carriers, led by United and Delta, resumed service to Tel Aviv earlier this month and are oversold on the New York route during this month’s fall holiday season.
Among the remaining holdouts are British Airways, Iberia and China’s Hainan, which are scheduled to return to Tel Aviv next month; Air Canada, which has brought forward the resumption of its service to Tel Aviv to November; and American Airlines, which has repeatedly pushed back flights to Israel until the spring.
