U.S. Companies Add 11 New Weekly Israel Flights

With American Airlines giving up its Tel Aviv-Philadelphia route, the planes on other carriers flying directly to the U.S. have become more crowded than ever – and the prices for direct flights reflect that short supply, as opposed to stopover flights to the U.S. via Europe, which were unusually inexpensive this past season.

With the expected jump in traffic in the spring and summer months, seats on planes to the U.S. will be more in demand than ever – and to satisfy that demand, Delta will be adding four new round trips a week between Israel and New York. That will increase Delta’s round trips to 11 weekly (United has 14).

Flights to the U.S. are most in demand among Israelis, and rare is the flight with an empty seat. In 2015, the number of Israelis flying to the U.S. was 1,470,598  (some more than once), with 656,106 landing at JFK, and 517,150 landing at Newark. The rest flew directly to Los Angeles or Philadelphia (on the route that has been closed). In 2016, San Francisco will show up on those statistics – thanks to a new direct flight there from Tel Aviv operated by United, which is set to debut next week.