After months of near-isolation from global air networks, Ben-Gurion Airport is preparing for its biggest week of international flight resumptions since the Middle East conflict grounded most foreign carriers. Nine airlines plan to restart Tel Aviv service in the coming days, the Israel Airports Authority announced, a development triggered by a ceasefire with Iran and closely watched by regulators, insurers, and travelers across Europe and North America.
The resumptions do not mean a return to normal. The IAA has described the process as a “gradual expansion” tied to rolling security evaluations conducted alongside Israeli defense agencies and international aviation regulators. Flights could still be pulled on short notice if the ceasefire falters or threat assessments change, a pattern that played out repeatedly over the past year as carriers cycled through rounds of suspension and restart.
Which airlines are confirmed or expected
The IAA has not published the full list of all nine carriers, and most have not issued individual public confirmations. What is known from available reporting:
Bluebird has already resumed Tel Aviv operations, with ALK Airlines operating flights on its behalf under a wet-lease arrangement, according to the Israeli business outlet Globes. Both are smaller European operators, and their early return reflects the willingness of niche carriers to re-enter a market that larger airlines still consider high-risk.
United Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier serving Israel before the conflict, suspended its Tel Aviv route multiple times over the past year in response to escalating security risks, a timeline documented by the Associated Press. AP reporting indicates the carrier is preparing for a restart while continuing to monitor the security picture, though United has not published a specific resumption date or schedule update as of May 2026. Its return would carry outsized significance for American travelers, many of whom had few nonstop options to Israel after the major U.S. and European carriers pulled out.
The identities of the remaining carriers have not been independently confirmed. Several major European airlines, including Lufthansa Group carriers, British Airways, and Air France, suspended Tel Aviv flights at various points during the conflict, and they are widely discussed as likely candidates for early return once insurers and national regulators sign off. However, none of those airlines had issued public schedule confirmations for resumed Ben-Gurion service as of May 2026. Until each carrier does so, the count of nine remains an IAA projection rather than a verified roster of completed resumptions. Readers should treat the gap between three named operators and the IAA’s total as an unresolved reporting question, not an established fact about which specific companies are involved.
El Al’s parallel expansion
While foreign carriers cautiously re-enter, Israel’s flag carrier is moving aggressively in the opposite direction. El Al is adding nine new destinations to its network, according to Yahoo Travel, which cited the airline’s route announcements. El Al’s own investor communications or press releases would provide stronger confirmation, but no such primary source was available in English-language reporting as of May 2026.
The distinction matters. El Al never fully stopped flying during the conflict. It operated as the primary lifeline for Israeli travelers and foreign nationals moving in and out of the country, often the only carrier with flights on the board at Ben-Gurion during the worst stretches. Its expansion now reflects both commercial opportunism and a bet that pent-up demand from business travelers, diaspora communities, and tourists is large enough to support a significantly bigger route map.
Foreign airlines returning to Tel Aviv carry a different kind of signal. Their presence represents an external assessment of the security environment, one that European and North American regulators, corporate travel departments, and insurance underwriters treat as a proxy for whether the airport is safe enough for routine commercial operations. When those carriers are absent, it depresses not just seat capacity but broader confidence in Israel as a destination.
Why the restart is fragile
The IAA’s own language about “ongoing situational assessments” signals that flight authorizations are being reviewed continuously, not granted on a fixed schedule. Airlines that restart this week could suspend service again within days if the security picture shifts. That is not hypothetical: over the past year, carriers including United went through multiple cycles of resumption and cancellation as missile threats, intelligence warnings, and diplomatic developments reshaped risk calculations in real time.
Schedule details remain thin. No specific flight frequencies, aircraft types, or origin cities have been confirmed for the group of returning carriers as a whole. A single weekly rotation from one European hub is a very different product than daily frequencies from multiple cities, and the gap between the two determines whether Ben-Gurion is genuinely reconnected to global networks or receiving limited symbolic service.
The scale of disruption that preceded this week’s restart was severe. Earlier rounds of conflict triggered regionwide airspace closures and large-scale cancellations that stranded a significant but imprecisely documented number of travelers, according to flight-tracking data from aviation analytics firms cited by the Associated Press. Precise passenger counts have not been published in available reporting.
For travelers, the practical reality is that a resumed route is not yet a reliable one. Airlines operating under conflict-related advisories typically reserve the right to modify schedules or reroute passengers with limited compensation. Travel insurance policies may exclude coverage for disruptions tied to armed conflict, leaving passengers to absorb the cost of last-minute changes if flights are pulled again. Checking real-time flight-tracking services such as FlightRadar24, rather than relying solely on airline schedule pages, remains the most dependable way to confirm whether a specific flight is actually operating on any given day.
Gaps in the public record as of May 2026
No institutional data on the economic impact of these resumptions has surfaced in available reporting. Projected passenger volumes, tourism recovery estimates, and revenue forecasts for Ben-Gurion are largely absent from the public record. Without those figures, it is difficult to gauge whether this week represents a genuine turning point for Israel’s aviation sector or a tentative first step that could stall.
The ceasefire with Iran created the opening, but the durability of that ceasefire is the variable that will determine whether nine returning airlines become 19 or whether the list shrinks back toward zero. Flight-tracking data from firms like Cirium, cited in earlier AP coverage of the conflict’s aviation impact, will offer the clearest measure in the weeks ahead. Announced intentions matter less than wheels on the ground, and for now, the gap between the two remains wide enough to warrant caution from anyone planning travel through Ben-Gurion in the near term.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
