ISRAELspecialist Longwood Holidays has chartered a weekly flight to Eilat to replace capacity axed by Thomson following the recent Gulf conflict.
Thomson cancelled its three Monday departures from Manchester, Gatwick and Luton on December 21, leaving Longwood to make other arrangements for passengers booked on those flights.
Longwood managing director Rafi Caplin said a 235-seat Boeing 757 had been chartered from Thomson-owned Britannia Airways. The aircraft will fly from Manchester to Ovda in Eilat, via Luton, every Monday.
Caplin refused to say how much extra the new arrangement would cost Longwood.
But he did not blame Thomson for pulling out of Eilat, after it had evacuated customers from the resort three times last year.
Nevertheless, he echoed industry criticism of the Foreign Office, which warned against all non-essential travel to Israel for a period of around 10 days in December (Travel Weekly January 6).
“If you evacuate Eilat every time Saddam Hussein coughs, you will destroy the resort,” Caplin claimed.