Return of international flights to Israel’s Haifa Airport after a 4-year absence
After a four-year absence, international flights have resumed at the Haifa Airport in northern Israel, according to a statement from the Ministry of Transport and Road Safety.
According to the Xinhua news agency, three flights operated by the Maltese carrier Universal Air on Thursday transported passengers from the airport to Paphos and Larnaca in Cyprus, respectively.
Along with tourist flights to the southern Ramon Airport near the Red Sea resort city of Eilat, the majority of international flights into and out of Israel take place at the country’s main Ben Gurion Airport.
The number of international flights decreased over time until the service was terminated in 2019 due to Haifa Airport’s 1,300-meter-long short runway, which only permits the operation of small aircraft and short-haul flights to nearby destinations like Cyprus and the Greek islands.
Plans to extend the runway have been discussed numerous times in recent years, but they have proven challenging to implement because of the variety of uses along the Haifa Bay Mediterranean coastal strip, which is home to important civilian seaports, an Israeli Navy seaport, a shipyard, and more, according to the Ministry.
The potential restart of international flights at the airport was delayed by the coronavirus epidemic that broke out in Israel in the early months of 2020.
Connecting the north and south to central Israel, according to transport minister Miri Regev, is a crucial strategic objective on both a social and economic level.
For every brief holiday or business trip, people in the north shouldn’t have to go to Ben Gurion Airport, she said.
Regev also urged other European airlines to run direct flights to Haifa for the benefit of northern residents and visitors who want to see the various tourist attractions in the area.
