El Al withdraws from region over security costs

ISRAELI NATIONAL carrier El Al Israel Airlines said yesterday it was discontinuing flights to Turkey and Cyprus from the end of next month.

El Al runs three weekly flights to Istanbul and Larnaca and plans to cancel the service from March 1, it said in a statement.

“The flights to Larnaca and Istanbul do not meet the criteria of our business plan, and suffer from high security expenses, as well as limitations on cooperation due to the high standards involved with the security sensitivities,” El Al said in Jerusalem.

The business plan favours destinations based on demand and profitability to the company, the airline said.

El Al has recently increased its flights to East Asia and Miami and added a non-stop flight to Los Angeles. El Al said it intends to increase the frequency of flights to other destinations in the coming months.

The airline’s Cyprus representatives could not be reached yesterday but sources in the airline industry said the issue was purely financial. “El Al is paying for the security with a small contribution from the government,” said the source.

The source said that in addition to the heavy security costs, charges were also increasing at Larnaca since the operation of the airport changed hands. The airport used to be run by the Cyprus government but is now in the hands of a strategic investor.

“We may also see some other airlines leave but for El Al it was proving very expensive due to the security measures they are required to take,” said the source.

With a gap of three flights per week up for grabs, it is likely that Cypriot national carrier Cyprus Airways (CY) will step in to cover the route, the airline’s general manager Christos Kyriakides said.

CY currently runs three flights per week to Tel Aviv in winter with more added in summer.
Kyriakides said: “We are looking into this latest development and we do have plans to increase capacity on this route.”

“These will probably be put into effect gradually because it’s something we want to build on,” he added.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.