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| German tourism to Israel set to rise
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German tourism to Israel is expected to rise significantly in the coming months after the European country’s main airline announced an increase in flights.
From this month Lufthansa will increase their capacity on flights to the holy land by more than 7,000 seats a month. In addition, German tour operator TUI has said it will operate four weekly scheduled flights to Israel.
Following negotiations between the Israel Civil Aviation Authority and the German Federal Office of Civil Aeronautics, it was agreed that TUI will offer weekly three flights from Munich and one from Dusseldorf .
TUI, one of Europe’s largest tour operators, currently only manages charter flights to Israel. It handled scheduled flights to Israel until the outbreak of the recent conflict in 2000.
Agreement reached
The Lufthansa capacity increase was announced after Israeli and German civil aviation officials reached an agreement last Monday following a long legal battle over seat numbers.
Lufthansa, the biggest foreign carrier on flights to and from Israel, said that starting in late March, it will move to the larger 345-seat Airbus A340-600 aircraft from an Airbus A330 on one of its two daily flights.
It will continue to use Boeing 747-400 planes on its second flight. The airline said that shifting to an A340 allows for 115 more passengers per flight.
Boost to Israel
"Our ability to increase the number of seats on the route to Israel will allow Lufthansa to continue contributing to the Israeli economy by bringing thousands of tourists each month from Germany as well as other parts of the world," Ofer Kisch, Lufthansa Israel’s general manager, said in a statement.
Israel’s Ministry of Transport had sought to cut the number of Lufthansa flights to Israel by 30% in 2004, mainly to protect Israel’s national airline, EL AL. Lufthansa appealed the decision to the High Court of Justice in Jerusalem. In a compromise, the number of flights and seats was frozen until 2006.
These agreements come at an important time for tourism to Israel from Germany.
As many as 103,000 German tourists visited Israel in 2005, 38 percent more than in 2004. 250,000 German tourists visited Israeli annually before the outbreak of the intifada. Lufthansa carried 26, 200 passengers between Israel and Germany in January 2006, two percent more than in January 2004.
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