Airlines wrestled with the safety risk of evacuation operations in Israel on Thursday, with carriers including Dutch KLM cancelling flights while sister airline Air France mounted a special relief flight chartered by the French foreign ministry. Airlines have faced warnings over insurance coverage in the wake of the weekend attacks on Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants, which have been followed by Israeli retaliatory strikes and growing concerns among some airlines and insurers over the security of airspace near Tel Aviv's airport. Ben Gurion Airport this week denied a Hamas statement that the Palestinian faction had hit it with rockets from Gaza. Reports say almost all rockets fired at Tel Aviv have been intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome system and none have landed at the airport itself, located just outside the city. But airlines remain nervous about using the airport without stronger guidance and at least one foreign carrier, Norwegian Air, said its insurers had refused to provide cover, forcing it to cancel a planned evacuation flight. "The reason is that the insurance company that Norwegian and a number of other airlines use no longer cover flights to Tel Aviv," Norwegian said, without elaborating. Norwegian later said it had scheduled a new flight on Friday from Eilat in southern Israel in cooperation with Norway's foreign ministry. Insurance industry sources say insurers are telling airlines they may review their existing policies, though one broker told Reuters they were not yet aware of any cancellations.<br/>
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Bookings to Israel have collapsed and it is up to governments to decide if airlines fly there, Michael O'Leary, CEO of European budget carrier Ryanair said Thursday, adding the Irish carrier may restart one or two daily flights from Friday. Israel has vowed to annihilate the Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip in retribution for the deadliest attack on civilians in its history when hundreds of Hamas gunmen crossed the barrier and rampaged through Israeli towns on Saturday. "We flew (to Tel Aviv) on Sunday, we stopped flying on Monday. We're in touch with the airport, there's no engineering cover at the moment. That's being restored today," O'Leary told reporters at a previously scheduled industry briefing in Brussels. "So we're looking to put back at least one or two daily flights from tomorrow, Friday. The airport wants us to restore a daily flight to Vienna and a daily flight to somewhere else ... but it's subject to the security situation." Israel has put Palestinian enclave Gaza, home to 2.3m people, under total siege with no humanitarian exceptions and launched the most powerful bombing campaign in the 75-year history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Air France-KLM, said its commercial flights had been cancelled but France had organised special evacuation flights. "The French have authorised that we fly one flight a day on a special exemption from Paris to Tel Aviv starting today and for our regular schedule ... we will not cancel the rest of the month. We are on a 48 hour rolling period," Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith said.<br/>
The US government will begin offering charter flights to transport American citizens and immediate family members who are seeking to leave Israel after the deadly attack by Hamas, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing Thursday that the administration does not have an estimate for how many Americans are seeking to leave the country but asked US citizens in Israel who want help evacuating to fill out an intake form on the US State Department website. Kirby said the US is also looking for ways to evacuate its citizens by land and sea. A State Department spokesman said charter flights would start on Friday. “These initial transportation options will be augmented in the coming days. Senior State Department officials are actively working with airline carriers and international partners on how best to provide additional options to US citizens seeking to depart Israel or conduct onward travel to the United States,” department spokesman Matthew Miller said. Miller said the US would monitor the situation closely, evaluating both the demand for flights and the overall security situation. Other nations have also begun efforts to help their nationals depart Israel after many major carriers suspended air service to the country. <br/>
A woman with a knife stabbed a taxi driver as he was driving down an interstate and then slashed an airline employee and a police lieutenant at the Atlanta airport before she was tackled by another officer, according to a police report. The 44-year-old woman was arrested and charged with four counts of aggravated assault. She was being held in the Clayton County Jail and was denied bond during an initial court appearance Thursday, according to online court records. The records did not list an attorney who could comment on the charges. The taxi driver told police he picked the woman up at a MARTA train station Wednesday afternoon and she asked to be taken to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. As he drove down Interstate 285, not far from the airport, the woman stabbed him in the upper chest, near his right shoulder. Then she grabbed his phone and threw it out the window, he told police. At the airport, someone told an Atlanta police officer that there was a woman with a knife. The officer used his radio to alert other officers and two of them spotted her. They began to follow her and one of them saw her “swipe her knife” at a Delta Air Lines employee, cutting her on the left side of her chest, the report says. The officer fired his Taser, but it hit the woman’s pants leg and didn’t make contact with her skin. The woman did not obey commands to drop the knife, and another officer fired his Taser at her, but the report says it’s not clear if its prongs hit the woman. A police lieutenant sprayed his pepper spray at the woman, but then slipped on the spray on the ground. The woman bent down and stabbed him in the left leg, the report says. Another officer then tackled the woman, who was still armed with the knife. Once the woman was in custody, an officer put a tourniquet on the police lieutenant’s leg and another applied a chest seal to the taxi driver’s chest to stop the bleeding. The police lieutenant, the taxi driver and the Delta employee were all taken to hospitals for treatment. Atlanta police said Thursday that the police lieutenant had been discharged from a hospital and was recovering. They said they would increase patrols throughout the airport.<br/>
Israel's parliamentary finance committee approved a plan to provide a state guarantee of $6b to cover insurance against war risks to Israeli airlines, the Finance Ministry said on Thursday. The guarantee framework will grant Israeli airlines insurance policies against war risks, thereby ensuring the continuity of air operations in Israel. Due to the outbreak of war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas last weekend, the insurance companies insuring flag carrier El Al Airlines, Israir and Arkia have said that the terms of their policies indicated that in time of war, within seven days of notification, the insurers are entitled to cancel insurance policies. As a result, the Finance Ministry sought state guarantees that needed to be approved by lawmakers. While many global airlines have cancelled flights to Tel Aviv, Israel's three carriers are still flying, even adding flights to bring back Israelis who are stranded - many of whom are returning as reserves in the military.<br/>
Syria said Israeli forces launched simultaneous missile attacks on the airports in its capital Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo on Thursday, damaging the runways and putting both hubs out of service. A Syrian military source cited by state news agency SANA said "bursts of missiles" hit the two airports at the same time, in what he said was a bid to distract the world's attention from Israel's war with Hamas militants in Gaza. The Israeli military said it does not comment on such reports. Israel has for years carried out strikes against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, including against the Aleppo and Damascus airports. Sources have said strikes on the airports are intended to disrupt Iranian supply lines to Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that started in 2011.<br/>
European airline chiefs said on Thursday the industry needs to make more money and may consolidate further to pay for sustainability targets, a trend likely to lead to higher fares for passengers on top of rising demand for air travel. The head of British Airways parent IAG told reporters at a CEO roundtable that there was a more than a 90% risk that the industry would not meet a European Union mandate for the availability of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in 2025. The European Union has adopted rules requiring flights departing from EU airports to carry a progressively increasing amount of SAF, starting with 2% of total fuel in 2025. Gallego said Europe's tougher rules, compared to other regions, risked making its fragmented industry less competitive, putting pressure on airlines to continue a recent wave of partnerships. "The problem we have in Europe is we have a small group or a small airline competing in a global war with mandates of sustainability that are ahead of others. We are not going to be competitive," Gallego said. "So we need to consolidate the industry, you know, in order to afford all these, for example, sustainability ambitions that we have. And that's the reason why we are trying to be bigger, more efficient, and to develop better platforms for our customers."<br/>
Russia's aviation authority on Thursday denied media reports that five planes flying over central Russia had emitted distress signals, saying the false information looked like it had come from a glitch in a foreign flight tracking website. The TASS state news agency had reported on the incident earlier on Thursday. Rosaviatsiya, Russia's aviation authority, said in a statement that all five flights had taken place as planned and without any safety issues and that no distress signals had been detected. It said media had originally cited information from the FlightRadar24 flight tracking website which Rosaviatsiya said had probably been generated by a system glitch.<br/>
Chinese visitors remain slow to return to Southeast Asian nations despite such efforts as visa-free travel to lure them back, threatening their tourism-dependent economies and forcing some companies to reassess expansion plans. The Wat Arun temple in Bangkok was filled with foreign tourists Tuesday, many of whom snapped photos in front of the landmark. But an on-site employee says the tourist traffic is only around 70% of pre-COVID levels, citing the smaller-than-expected number of Chinese visitors. The Chinese tourists who do arrive are thriftier now. A gift shop operator notes that they haggle for bigger discounts than before COVID-19. "If I refuse the price the customer asks for, they leave quickly," the 60-year-old shopkeeper said. Approximately 11m Chinese visited Thailand in 2019, accounting for 27% of all foreign visitors. The share has since shrunk to 12% for the January-August period of 2023. In Cambodia, the share of Chinese travelers plunged from 36% to 10%. Vietnam saw a drop from 32% to 12%. Overall, international visitors in Thailand sank 32% between the January-August periods of 2019 and 2023. Vietnam's tally fell 31%. The arrested recovery in Chinese outbound tourism is to blame. China had strictly limited its citizens' cross-border travel under its zero-COVID policy and lifted a ban on overseas group travel just this February. But the slumping real estate market and the worsening job market have dampened Chinese people's appetite for spending, and many are choosing not to travel abroad.<br/>
Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems have expanded the scope of their ongoing inspections of a production defect affecting 737 Max 8 aircraft, Boeing said on Thursday. The planemaker in August identified a new quality problem with its popular 737 MAX aircraft involving supplier Spirit that resulted in improperly drilled holes on the aft pressure bulkhead made using an automated drill. Boeing has expanded inspections to include hand-drilled holes, according to trade publication The Air Current, which first reported the problem. "We continue to take the time necessary to ensure each airplane meets our standards and regulatory requirements prior to ticketing and delivery," Boeing said. The company declined to comment further on the scope of the latest issue or whether it will be able to meet its 737 delivery target of at least 400 jets in 2023, citing the quiet period before it announces its earnings on Oct. 25. Boeing notified the Federal Aviation Administration of its initial findings earlier this week, along with customers already facing delivery delays of 737 Max 8s, according to The Air Current. The FAA told Reuters it is "aware of the issue and are working it through our regular oversight process. There is no immediate safety concern." Spirit said it continues working closely with Boeing to address rework related to the aft pressure bulkhead.<br/>