Brigadier General (res.) Shmuel Zakai, director of the Civil Aviation Authority, addressed today (Sunday), in an interview with the "Kalman Lieberman" program on Channel B, the efforts being made by the authority to preserve the flights of foreign airlines to and from Israel - and noted that "the Israeli aircraft fleet during wartime is the largest ever in the history of the State of Israel.".
The director of the Civil Aviation Authority revealed that the Air Force distributed to foreign airlines the investigation into the Houthi missile strike at Ben Gurion Airport earlier this month, in order to reassure them and prove that despite the strike, the risk of something like this happening again is low.
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""In an unprecedented manner, the main points of the Air Force investigation were sent to the airlines with explanations of the failure. Why did it happen, what did they do to reduce the possibility of it happening.".
He said: "We are in continuous dialogue with airlines and regulators around the world, and everyone is interested in one thing - how we manage to maintain a high level of safety and security so that they, their passengers and crews, feel comfortable returning to fly to the State of Israel.".
He emphasized that for most companies, the decision to withdraw their operations from Israel stems from security considerations, and not from "anti-Israeli sentiment": "The business interest exists, Israel is an attractive destination, and for some of the airlines that stopped flying to Israel, these are their most profitable routes in the world.".
Zakai explained some of the considerations that foreign companies face when deciding whether to fly to Israel during a security escalation: "Israelis always like to say that 'everyone is anti-Semitic and no one loves us...' But before we dwell on them, let's talk about ourselves for a second. A few months ago, the Russians accidentally shot down an Azerbaijani plane in Russian skies during a drone attack.
""El Al stopped flying to Moscow, and resumed flights only after the CEO and I flew to Russia. We spoke with our counterparts and understood that if an El Al plane flies in the air and there is an attack on Moscow, the plane will not be in danger. This is what the companies do before they return to flying to Israel.".
So why did some companies return to flying to Israel, and others not?
Sometimes, according to Zakai, this is related to technical reasons: "There are objective things, for example, air crews. Delta, how does it place crews? It advertises the flight and then the crews choose whether to register and take the flight. There are companies that do the same thing and the crews simply don't want to fly (to Israel).".
