TORONTO — With the peak travel season upon us, Air Canada has added three non-stop flights to Israel for a total of seven per week, while El Al now flies four times a week to Ben Gurion International Airport.
Oded Grofman
At the same time, Air Canada shifted its times for departure from Tel Aviv to mid-day from after midnight, leading one keen observer of the tourism business to suggest that travel to Israel might suffer as a result.
Instead of departing Israel at night, as had been the case until the schedule changed in June, and arriving around 6 a.m. in Toronto, travellers will now leave Israel in early afternoon. That will mean missions and families who would have enjoyed a last day touring (and leaving for the airport late at night) will now have to arrive at the airport in the morning. That results in a loss of one day of travel at the end of a visit or it may force travellers to book an extra night in a hotel.
“People are leaving Israel at noon and arriving at 6 p.m. on the same day. So, it’s a day flight, and [with] a day flight, if you have all the time in the world, it doesn’t matter. But for some people, it’s not the most convenient thing in the world,” said the industry insider, who didn’t want to be identified, adding that those making connections often arrive at other destinations quite late at night.
“If you’re a businessman, you leave in the evening [under the old schedule] and arrive [in Toronto] in the morning. You have the whole day to do business. A lot of Israeli business people also don’t like to lose a day of work in Israel [on the departure day].”
Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesperson for Air Canada, said “the change was due to aircraft availability. It fit better with our schedule in terms of optimizing the aircraft.”
Under the previous schedule, the jet would sit idle in Ben Gurion for seven hours between flights. Now, it’s turned around in two.
Noting that Air Canada now offers daily return flights to Israel, Fitzpatrick said the current schedule is similar to flights from Europe to Canada, many of which are daytime flights. “A lot of our customers like that.”
“You’ve got to pick a time. There won’t be one time that would be ideal for everybody,” he said.
Dinah Kutner, general manager for El Al’s Canadian operations, said two of the Israeli air carrier’s weekly flights depart at 9:20 a.m., while the other two depart Ben Gurion at 12:50 a.m.
“People aren’t thrilled about flying through the day. People prefer night flights. That gives us an advantage [over Air Canada]. People love it. You get in, you go to sleep, you wake up, you’re in Toronto,” she said.
Kutner said El Al offers two day flights “due to [aircraft] rotation, where the aircraft has to be at certain times.”
UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, which sponsors a number of missions to Israel each year, said it could see no downside to the changes.
“We believe Air Canada’s decision to change flight times is aimed at strengthening its ability to maintain and grow the Tel Aviv route and is not expected to have a detrimental effect on our missions or diminish our community’s passion for Israel travel,” said Aviva Malka, federation’s director of missions operations and senior fund developer, special projects for Israel and overseas.
“It is a testament to our community’s strong relationship with Israel that there are so many direct flights to choose from between Toronto and Israel and we continue to applaud Air Canada in helping make that possible.”
Oded Grofman, head of the Israel Government Tourist Office (IGTO), said “we are working closely with the trade and Air Canada. It’s a commercial issue.
“We expect to have a record number of travellers to Israel this year – 80,000, a new record.”
