The main European airlines serving Tel Aviv have altered their flight schedules so pilots and cabin crews do not have to stay in Israel overnight, following a recent escalation of violence in the region, airline officials said Sunday, August 19.
German airline Lufthansa has altered its two daily flights between Frankfurt and Tel-Aviv to cut overnight stopovers out of their schedules. "The decision was taken after requests from our cabin crews and was implemented on August 12, three days after a suicide bomber killed 16 people in west Jerusalem. It will continue until September 16," said Lufthansa spokesman Yitzak Zaroni.
Lufthansa has also rescheduled three weekly flights between Munich and Tel Aviv so they can depart on the day of their arrival, Zaroni said. The Dutch-owned airline KLM and British Airways have altered their stopover arrangements in Cyprus and Athens respectively for ingoing flights to Israel.
New crews will join the flights to Tel Aviv at these stopovers and depart immediately upon arrival in Israel to either Amsterdam or London Heathrow. British Airways spokeswoman Irit Forster said although all scheduled flights will leave London at the same time as before, their departure from Tel Aviv has been put back. The same is true of KLM flights.
Hanan Zweig, marketing director for KLM in Israel, said that the changes were made for security reasons. "An airline is responsible both to its passengers and its employees," he said. British Airways and KLM did not specify how long the new timetables would continue.
Air France had a similar system briefly in June, following a suicide bombing on the first of the month, which killed 21 people in Tel Aviv. Its normal schedule has since been resumed. In future Air France will have one flight a day leaving Charles de Gaulle airport and returning to Paris on the same day.
Air France spokesman Joseph Amar said that the decision was not related to the views of their employees. "It was taken on the basis of the numbers of tourists visiting Israel at the moment. "These measures will remain in place until the end of October, by which time I hope the tourism situation will have returned to normal."
Swissair has also said it has changed its schedule so its crews do not have to spend the night in Israel. The US-owned company Delta Airlines said that they have not altered their flight schedules and that they still provide one service in and one out of Israel each day. Its flight crews will continue to stay overnight in Tel-Aviv. ― (AFP, Jerusalem)
© Agence France Presse 2001
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
