Scandinavian airline SAS to resume Copenhagen–Tel Aviv flights for first time since 2016

The Scandinavian airline SAS announced Thursday that it will resume Copenhagen–Tel Aviv flights in October. SAS, the joint national carrier of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, suspended operations at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in 2016 and has been absent from the Israeli market for nearly a decade. The airline plans to operate three flights a week.

Israeli airlines stopped flying to the Danish capital several years ago, likely due to limited market share and low profitability. The resumption of the Copenhagen–Tel Aviv route is expected to boost air traffic between Israel and northern Europe.

In addition to Scandinavian destinations, SAS offers numerous international flights across Europe, the United States, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Non-stop flights between Israel and Scandinavia have been rare in recent years and most traveling options included connecting flights. Earlier this summer, the Romanian airline company FLYYO offered the only direct flights between Ben Gurion Airport and Copenhagen. FLYYO offered round-trip fares at around $800. By contrast, SAS will reportedly offer a round-trip ticket from Tel Aviv to Copenhagen in October from $340 excluding a suitcase and only including a backpack. A direct flight between Copenhagen and Tel Aviv takes approximately 4 hours compared to 6-10 hours when traveling with connecting flights. 

The decision by SAS to resume its Israel flights follows a wider trend by European airline companies to return to the Israeli air travel market after nearly two years of disruptions due to the ongoing Gaza war and wider conflict with Iran and Tehran’s regional terrorist proxies. 

While security has been a concern amid the war, many international airline companies have also complained about lack of support from Israeli authorities, legal challenges and unwillingness to share costs for cancelled flights due to unforeseen security-linked events. 

In May, 20 international airline companies demanded that Israel implements legal reforms and offers passenger compensation for cancelled flights as a condition for resuming flights to Tel Aviv. 

Shirly Kazir, the head of Maritime and Hotels & Tourism practices at Fischer & Co law who represented the airline companies, explained the necessity to implement legal reforms and offer passenger compensation in Israel amid security challenges. 

“In light of the current state of emergency and the disastrous consequences of security incidents on the aviation and tourism industry… it appears that the conditions are ripe to issue an order to instate mechanisms applicable for emergency situations, which will allow flexibility in [passenger compensation] regulation, and incentivize foreign airlines to… resume their operations to Israel,” Kazir assessed. 

Following the ceasefire between Iran and Israel in June, the Lufthansa Group carriers announced that it would resume flights to Israel on August 1. The influential alliance consists of the large German airline company Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings and Brussels Airlines. These airline companies have resumed flights from Munich, Frankfurt and Vienna to Ben Gurion Airport. In addition, Air Europa resumed flights between Tel Aviv and the Spanish capital Madrid. Meanwhile, AirBaltic is scheduled to resume flights between Tel Aviv and the Latvian capital Riga in early September.