TEL AVIV: Gulf Air and EL AL Airlines, Israel’s national airline, are set to embark on a historic collaboration following the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU).
The MoU was signed at the Hilton Tel Aviv by Gulf Air chairman Zayed Alzayani and EL AL Airlines’ chairman David Brodet during the official visit from Bahrain to Israel.
Mr Alzayani also announced at the ceremony the launch of Gulf Air’s direct flights to Tel Aviv starting from January 7, 2021 – subject to government approvals – with two weekly flights.
The MoU signing and announcement of the airline’s newest destination launch follows the recent announcement of peace between the kingdom and Israel and the political, commercial and civil aviation agreements signed recently between the two countries.
Mr Alzayani said: “We are delighted to announce the launch of our Bahrain-Tel Aviv route as part of the historic initiation of Bahraini-Israeli relations. As the national carrier of Bahrain, we take great pride in supporting our leadership and kingdom in their role of preserving peace and prosperity in the region. We hope this is merely the beginning of developing further aviation opportunities and look forward to working with our friends and colleagues at EL AL and supporting each other to achieve bigger goals.
“We trust this new route will promote traffic providing commercial and social gains for both countries, while paving the path for numerous connections to the rest of our networks via the two destinations.”
Mr Brodet said: “The opportunity to explore a potential co-operation with Gulf Air is a direct result of the changes taking place in the region. We at EL AL look forward to seeing how we can offer our passengers new and exciting options – it goes well beyond just the flights but with expanding in the areas of cargo, maintenance and travel technology with EL AL’s cockpit innovation hub. I look forward to visiting Bahrain in the future.”
The comprehensive MoU sets the foundation to discuss potential joint codeshare operations between Manama and Tel Aviv, as well as on the global flight networks beyond the two carriers’ hubs, and contains plans for greater commercial cooperation in the fields of loyalty, cargo, engineering, travel technology and any area that can benefit both airlines and their customers.
Meanwhile, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) said it would service planes from Gulf Air that land in Israel. IAI said it would “provide a comprehensive technical response ... including post- and pre-flight services, daily maintenance, and support for any technical issues.”
Last month Gulf Air operated the first ever and historic flight between Bahrain and Israel that carried the kingdom’s delegation headed by Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Dr Abdullatif Alzayani which inaugurated the new flight code GF972 and the return flight of GF973, representing the international dialling codes of both countries.
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