El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL) will again suspend its daytime Tel Aviv-Eilat flight from Thursday, September 26. Passengers who were planning to spend the weekend in the resort town, or return from it, will have to go by bus and obtain a refund from the airline. El Al will continue to make its nighttime flight to Eilat, using the current flight path.
Two weeks ago, El Al suspended its daytime flight to Eilat, citing changes in the landing path by the Israel Civil Aviation Authority, which the airline called hazardous to passenger safety. Following intensive talks between El Al and the Civil Aviation Authority, the latter allowed the airline to continue using the previous flight path for two weeks, until conclusions were drawn over the new flight path. The deadline expires on Thursday, and the Civil Aviation Authority has not granted El Al another extension.
"We will not compromise the safety of our passengers. The new flight path to Eilat does not offer the proper safety level for civil aviation," said El Al in a statement. "El Al's experts, headed by its chief pilot and Boeing 737 fleet manager, carried out additional meticulous tests in the past few days on the flight path proposed by the Civil Aviation Authority. In view of the analysis and the answers received from the Civil Aviation Authority to El Al's questions, the expert opinion is that the new flight path does not allow a proper safety of civil aviation flights that is acceptable to El Al and at airports around the world."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on September 24, 2013
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