Within the last month, nearly all major Western and international airlines have announced suspensions and cancelations of their service to both Tel Aviv and Beirut. This also as foreign nationals have scrambled to get out of both countries, given ongoing fears of the outbreak of bigger regional war involving Iran and Hezbollah attacking Israel.
While American Airlines was among the many carriers announcing temporary pauses in service, it has just issued a surprising lengthy extension to this suspension in flights. On Friday, the Fort Worth-based company announced it doesn't plan to resume flights to Tel Aviv until April 2025.
This is a longer cancelation than any other airline, including in all of Europe, so far as a result of the Gaza war and related fears of regional escalation and spillover.
"American Airlines has suspended operations to and from Tel Aviv through March 29, 2025," a spokesperson said in a fresh statement to Newsmax.
"To provide additional flexibility, we will extend our travel alert allowing customers whose travel plans are impacted by this adjustment to rebook without a fee or cancel and receive a refund."
"We will continue to work closely with our partner airlines to assist customers traveling between Israel and European cities with service to the U.S.," the statement continued.
The latter part of the statement suggests that once AA-partner British Airways (BA) resumes service to Tel Aviv, tickets can be booked for the Europe part of a flight utilizing BA partner service.
Newsmax wrote of the outlet Israel Hayom:
The outlet said that it contacted the American Airlines reservation center and tried to book a flight in December. However, it reported that a representative was "surprised" to discover there were no American Airlines flights in its system and that it was not possible to book flights this winter.
So it seems that despite recent US declarations that a Gaza ceasefire is at the "eleventh hour" and near the "goal line" - major carriers like American Airlines remain deeply skeptical and foresee extended safety issues in terms of airspace over the region.
Iran has yet to retaliate for the July 31st Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran; however, Israel is still on the alert, and believes such a reprisal attack could come in the form of a ballistic missile and drone launches at any moment. This is also what has put international commercial aviation on alert.
