Delta Air Lines is following through with previously disclosed plans to resume flights to Tel Aviv from New York on 7 June, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Delta will use an Airbus A330-900neo to provide some 2,000 weekly seats from John F Kennedy International airport to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International airport. The route was suspended in October 2023, following Hamas’ 5 October attack on Israel. Delta signalled in March that it was planning to revive the route for the Northern Hemisphere’s summer travel season. ”The decision to resume the route… follows an extensive security risk assessment by the airline,” says the Atlanta-headquarted carrier. “Delta continues to closely monitor the situation in Israel in conjunction with government and private sector partners.” Delta has a new codeshare partnership with El Al Israel Airlines, which operates flights from Tel Aviv to such US cities as New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The US State Department urges American citizens to reconsider travel to Israel and the West Bank due to “terrorism and civil unrest”, while issuing a “do not travel” warning to Gaza due to ”terrorism and armed conflict”. <br/>
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Air France-KLM Group CEO Ben Smith signaled he’s unlikely to take another look at Italian carrier ITA Airways, even if the airline comes back on the market in the event of a failed takeover bid by Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Italy is “a difficult market, when you look at the two airports, you look at Milan, you look at Rome, there’s a lot of foreign competition in Milan,” Smith said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday in Dubai at the IATA annual general meeting. “If there were a business case to be had, we would be pursuing it a lot harder.” Lufthansa’s planned E325m investment in ITA Airways has run into potential trouble as competition authorities seek remedies on routes that could derail the deal. Air France-KLM has owned stakes in the Italian carrier’s predecessor at different points in the past, and Smith said on Monday that “neither one of them worked out.” “We looked at it a third time, we walked away from it,” Smith said, referring to Air France-KLM’s decision not to pursue a possible ITA bid. Smith reiterated his interest in airline consolidation to help carriers gain scale and better compete with American and Gulf airlines. The focus of the European Union, which complicates such transactions, is “wrong,” the CEO said.<br/>