ELAL ISRAELAirlines is trebling Stansted flights to Tel Aviv this summer to take advantage of improved UK and Ireland connections at the London airport. Services have gone from three a week to nine.
General manager UK and Ireland Daniel Saadon said that frequent Stansted flights from El Al’s UK and Irish partner airlines meant there was increased demand for Israel flights.
He said: “We are seeing a lot of traffic out of Manchester, Scotland and Ireland to Stansted.”
Saadon is working closely with KLM UK and Ryanair to feed passengers onto the increased Tel Aviv schedule.
Agents around Stansted will be offered promotional fares for the route in the summer.
However, the increase in Tel Aviv schedules has been at the expense of Stansted-New York flights. Three transatlantic services a week have been axed.
Saadon said: “There is so much competition on flights to New York from the UK and as we only offered a few it was difficult to compete.”
Tel Aviv is now Stansted’s only scheduled long-haul service in the summer.
ElAl’s Heathrow and Manchester flights stay at daily and twice weekly respectively for the new season.
Saadon said the airline is co-operating with British Midland and Aer Lingus to ensure transfer traffic stays high.
Heathrow capacity will be increased in May when the airline operates a Boeing 747-400 on two of the seven weekly frequencies instead of smaller B767s and B747-200s.
Saadon also predicted an increase in traffic in May in the run-up to the Israeli General Election on May 17.