Airlines agonise over safety risk of Israel flights

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/>