While major airlines started to resume the Israel flights that they canceled following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that prompted the country's military entry into Gaza earlier this year, the situation remains highly volatile given the ongoing risk of war with nearby Middle Eastern nations.
On July 27, a new attack on a soccer field in the Golan Heights village of Majdal Shams left 12 children dead. While the Lebanese extremist group Hezbollah has denied responsibility, it has been identified as responsible by both Israel and the Biden administration as the world waits for the response threatened by the Israeli military.
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Amid such an atmosphere and heightened risk of further war, Germany's flagship carrier, Lufthansa (DLAKF) has temporarily canceled its flights to Tel Aviv from Frankfurt and Munich along with its flight to Beirut until at least Aug. 5. The news was first reported by Israeli newspapers going off changes posted on flight boards at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport (TLV).
Airlines canceling flights, ‘monitoring the situation in real time’
The cancelations also apply to flights run by Lufthansa subsidiary Austrian Airlines, while Air France-KLM (AFRAF) has yet to pull flights but told Reuters that it was "monitoring the situation in Lebanon in real-time."
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No U.S.-based airline has yet to announce the cancelation of flights to Israel or Lebanon formally, but the State Department issued a statement saying that some are "considering temporary alterations to their flight plans" and "adjusting their flight schedules in Lebanon."
The government agency in charge of citizen safety abroad and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut also warned all American citizens currently in the country to leave as soon as possible.
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These are the airlines that restarted flights to Tel Aviv this year
When the Oct. 7 attack in Israel took place, U.S.-based airlines such as Delta (DAL) and United Airlines (UAL) immediately canceled all flights to Tel Aviv as well as nearby Jordan out of uncertainty around the type and the scale of the war that would break out.
For a while, flagship carrier El Al (ELALF) was the only airline to run flights to Israel from the United States but, by March, United and Delta both announced plans to gradually start resuming their service to Tel Aviv.
Both airlines have been running flights to Tel Aviv from the New York area (in United's case, from Newark Liberty International Airport) since the spring while United announced a schedule in which it would also start introducing flights from cities including San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Chicago by October (although it left in the caveat that it would continue to "monitor the situation" and would adjust the schedule if the shaky security within Israel proper changes.)
Flying to Lebanon from the U.S. generally requires a transfer with an airline like Air France or Emirates as carriers such as American Airlines do not fly there directly.
"The decision to resume the route on June 7, 2024, which was temporarily suspended in October 2023, follows an extensive security risk assessment by the airline," Delta said in a statement in March 2024. "Delta continues to closely monitor the situation in Israel in conjunction with government and private-sector partners."
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