Ryanair may resume Israel flights, Air France-KLM evaluates commercial options

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/>