United Airlines said on Monday that it was extending flight cancellations to Israel through June 12, following the Houthi missile attack on Ben-Gurion International Airport earlier this month.
The Chicago-based carrier operated a twice-daily service between Newark and Tel Aviv.
United had previously been set to resume service to Tel Aviv next week.
The Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines is currently scheduled to renew flights to Israel later this month from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Six people were wounded by the May 4 Houthi attack, with the missile penetrating both U.S. and Israeli missile defense systems and impacting near the airport.
The cancellations again leave Israel’s flagship carrier El AL and the smaller Arkia as the only airlines offering nonstop service to the United States, sending airfares back up, just as they had been starting to drop.
“Once again this shows that clients should only be booking on Israeli airlines,” Mark Feldman, the Jerusalem director of Diesenhaus Travels, told JNS on Tuesday. He noted that while some foreign carriers try to move customers to other airlines, others, like United, refuse and only offer flights to Athens or a refund as options.
Major foreign airlines had just resumed flights to Israel this spring, ahead of the Passover holiday season, after repeatedly suspending them during Israel’s 19-month war against Hamas in Gaza.
Earlier this week, Madrid-based Air Europa resumed service to Tel Aviv, making it one of the first major European carriers to restart flights after the airport attack.
Despite the turmoil, several non-Western carriers have continued operating uninterrupted. FlyDubai and Etihad Airways of the United Arab Emirates, as well as Ethiopian Airlines and Greece-based Blue Bird Airways have maintained their service to Tel Aviv throughout the war.
