Ex-Israir Airlines Boeing 757 at Ben
Gurion Airport.
The airline no longer operates this model of aircraft
Israir Airlines ( ), usually
referred to as Israir, is an airline based in Tel Aviv
, Israel
.
It
operates domestic scheduled and air taxi flights from Sde Dov Airport
, Haifa
Airport
, Ben Gurion Airport
and Eilat
Airport
, as well as international charter services from Ben Gurion
International Airport
, to Europe, Asia, and North America. It also
operates VIP flights and is Israel's second largest airline after
El Al employing some 350 staff. The airline is
said to have modeled itself based on US
low cost carrier,
JetBlue.
History
Israir Airlines was established in 1989 as Kanfei HaEmek (Valley
Wings), before changing its name to Israir Airlines in 1996. It is
now wholly owned by the
Ganden Group.
The airline began with domestic services from Eilat Airport, Ben
Gurion International Airport, Sde Dov Airport, and Haifa Airport in
the North of the country. It expanded its operations to begin
international
charter flights in
1999 building up a route network which now covers much of Europe,
as well as regularly flying to other destinations in Asia, Africa,
and North America.
The
airline expanded operations across the Atlantic
when they
started regular charter service to New York City's Kennedy
International Airport
in June 2004. Service to JFK in New York
City ended on September 13, 2008. Permission was granted to the
airline to convert this to regular scheduled service by the Israeli
government and the
FAA as of May 1, 2006. This
service will be discontinued in September 2008, due to escalating
fuel prices and the expectation of a drop in the number of
passengers due to the weakness of the dollar at the time.
In early 2007, the airline announced plans to introduce
Sky-Torah scrolls on each of its aircraft. These were
effectively
Torah scrolls which would be
carried on board its flight for
Jewish
passengers to use for prayer. This is a first for any Israeli
airline and was seen by many as a means to attract many
Haredi passengers to the airline at a time when they
were showing great dissatisfaction with arch-rival,
El Al, following their flying of aircraft on the
Shabbat. Later on in 2007, the airline
sparked controversy once again when a passenger announced he was
filing a lawsuit against the airline for misadvertising the legroom
they offered on their aircraft.
In early
2008, when restrictions were lifted on Israeli airlines
destinations, Israir applied for designated carrier status on
routes from Israel to London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Amsterdam
, Rome, Budapest
, Las Vegas
, and Miami
- some of
which are destinations which are currently served by the airline as
charter routes.
Destinations
Israir operates the following services (as of March 2009):
Fleet
The Israir Airlines fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of
12 September 2009)
[94222]:
After Israir was granted permission to operate scheduled service on
the lucrative New York-Tel Aviv route, in spring 2006 it entered
talks with both Boeing and
Airbus regarding
the acquisition of new aircraft to its fleet and replacement of its
existing jets. The company was said to be in talks with Boeing over
the 787 model. It also signed a deal to acquire
Airbus A320 aircraft. This is a
significant milestone in Israeli aviation as no airline has ever
before purchased Airbus aircraft. In April 2008, the airline
received an
Airbus A330 for its New York
flights to replace the
Boeing 767
aircraft it had previously been wet-leasing.
Incidents and accidents
In June 2001, one of Israir's
ATR-42-320
aircraft was damaged beyond repair following a heavy landing at Ben
Gurion Airport. Despite the aircraft being written off, no
passengers were injured in this incident.
On July
6, 2005 a fully loaded Israir 767 accidentally taxied onto an
active runway at JFK
and a Douglas DC-8
cargo aircraft narrowly avoided
collision by taking off at full throttle above them, with only 45
feet of clearance over the 767. Israir pilots actually
modified their incident reports to claim that the cargo plane had
taken off beside the plane, rather than directly above. The pilots
and several high ranking Israir officials were dismissed in the
scandal.
In May 2007, an Israir Airlines aircraft on a test flight was
almost shot down by
Israeli
F-16 jets after it entered a demarcation zone
where airlines are expected to identify themselves.
Later that month, on
May 23, an Israir flight had to make an emergency landing following
smoke build up in the cabin on approach at Berlin-Schönefeld International
Airport
. No one was injured in the incident.
In July
2008, an Israir Airlines aircraft flew from Eilat Airport to Ben Gurion International
Airport with a small hole in its frame. The hole was
discovered by mechanics at Ben Gurion and there is an ongoing probe
as to whether or not Israir knew of the hole which was done by
Israir workers in Eilat when they crashed a mobile staircase into
the aircraft's body. The plane was next scheduled to fly to Italy
and at an altitude of over 10,000 feet, the plane would most likely
have experienced a decompression, possibly explosive, and could
have resulted in injuries or fatalities.
References
- " Contact Israir Airlines." Israir Airlines. Retrieved
on 23 September 2009.
External links
- Suvarnabhumi Airport
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