El Al operating new emergency flights to Israel, Air Haifa resumes service from Cyprus

Despite the ongoing ballistic missile attacks from Iran, Israeli airlines are offering a limited number of emergency flights and publicly accessible flights into Israel.

“El Al Airlines announced Thursday afternoon that three emergency flights – two from New York and one from Bangkok - are scheduled to depart for Israel overnight carrying Israelis stranded abroad at the start of the war against Iran,” Ynet News reported. “The airline confirmed that passengers assigned to these flights have already been notified.”

El Al said 14 emergency flights will arrive in Israel on Friday.

The emergency flights are intended for those who purchased tickets for El Al flights that were canceled due to the war, with El Al giving priority to “exceptional humanitarian cases…and for political and security needs.”

“Since the beginning of the rescue flight operation, we have managed to return thousands of passengers within approximately seven days of their original flight date,” the airline stated.

El Al is not currently offering public ticket sales for flights into Israel. 

Air Haifa, however, announced that it would reopen such flights.

On Thursday, the airline announced it would open four daily flights from Larnaca, Cyprus to Haifa, Israel, from June 23-26. All available tickets were rapidly sold out, but “additional ticket inventory will be made available later,” according to Ynet News.

In addition to its publicly accessible flights, Air Haifa announced that it will operate nine daily “rescue flights” in the coming week. Arkia, another Israeli airline, is also planning to operate rescue flights into the country.

While multiple airlines are flying into Israel, none are currently offering outbound flights.