El Al to Refund Tickets Canceled by Lockdown

El Al Airlines said on Sunday evening that it will refund tickets for flights on or before February 15, after the government ordered a weeklong shutdown of Ben Gurion Airport.

The closure will start from midnight Monday-Tuesday and remain in effect at least until Sunday, January 31, when national lockdown measures are set to be eased.

Earlier in the day, the Cabinet decided to ban incoming and outgoing passenger flights in order to stop the spread of COVID-19 and new coronavirus strains.

The government approved the near-total ban on all air travel, a day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held deliberations on the plan with the Health Minister, Transportation Minister, head of the National Security Council, the directors general of the Health and Transportation Ministries, the coronavirus commissioner, the head of the Health Services in the Health Ministry, the head of the Civil Aviation Authority, the Attorney General, and other senior officials.

“We’re ahead of the whole world,” said Netanyahu at the opening of the Cabinet meeting Sunday. “No other country has done what we’re going to do now. We are going to hermetically seal the country.

“During this week of closed skies we will vaccinate another million Israelis.”

Under the proposal, the government will be able to extend the travel ban beyond the initial date of January 31.

While travelers will be barred from entering Israel in nearly all cases, exceptions will be made for humanitarian cases on special chartered flights.

Travelers needing to leave the country will be allowed to do so only if they are granted special permission for “exceptional circumstances.”