Starting from Friday, 1 November, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport (TLV) will close its Terminal 1 to international flights until March 2025. The news comes after many airlines announced the suspension of their flights to the airport given the current war in the region.
“Starting Friday, November 1, through March 23, all international flights will operate only out of Terminal 3. Domestic flights will continue to operate out of Terminal 1, as usual, until further notice”, the Israel Airports Authority (IAA) announced on Monday.
Terminal 1, which has lower fees than Terminal 3 and is thus designated for low cost airlines, had only reopened earlier this year, in June, but the fact that low-cost airlines easyJet, Ryanair and Wizz Air have stopped flying to Tel Aviv until the beginning of next year seems to have had a direct impact on the decision-making. Wizz Air, the fourth-largest foreign carrier at Ben Gurion Airport, doesn’t plan to fly to Tel Aviv before at least January 2025, while Ryanair and easyJet are talking about March or April.
Airlines such as Lufthansa, British Airways and Delta had already announced to continue their flight suspension to Israel following travel advisories from, amongst others, the UK government and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) warning against non-essential travel.
Given the many flight cancellations, passenger numbers at Terminal 1 had dropped to approximately 20,000 travellers per day. According to the IAA, this made it impossible to keep the terminal fully functional. However, some domestic flights will still take off from Terminal 1.
The small number of international flights to and from Tel Aviv still in place will now be handled at Terminal 3. That terminal is known for its higher operating costs because of higher taxes and, in February this year, Ryanair suspended its flights to the Israeli capital because of that reason. Therefore, it is unlikely its services will resume before Terminal 1 reopens and other low-cost carriers will undoubtedly follow the same reasoning.
