TURKEY

Israel Airline El Al in Istanbul After 13 Years

The Israel Airline El Al that had to stop its scheduled flights in March 2007 due to financial reasons, landed on Istanbul Atatürk Airport this morning, after many years.
Elda SASUN
Israel Airline El Al in Istanbul After 13 Years

Translation by Janet MITRANI

ELAL had applied to organize a regular cargo flight program, on the Tel Aviv - Istanbul line. Following the approval of the Turkish Aviation Authorities, El Al's cargo plane landed in Istanbul, very early in the morning, with a flight that can be called historical.

During the telephone conversation we had with ELAL Cargo Department Manager Ronen Shapira last night, he stated that the flights were reorganized only to carry goods. "Unfortunately El Al airplanes cannot carry passengers due to Coronavirus at the moment. So we turned our planes into cargo planes. We decided to use these planes for humanitarian aid against coronavirus, to carry various medical aid supplies that can be used in the war against coronavirus. We established a project with countries like China, USA, intended to carry supplies like gloves, medical masks, overalls needed to fight the coronavirus. We contacted countries to carry these materials that are missing in many countries. We requested Istanbul flights for the same reason." said Ronen Shapira.

This morning at 07:50, after El Al plane landed, Shapira posed for a photo together with the authorities of the cargo company acting as El Al's Turkey sales representative, in front of the plane holding both countries' flags.

The airplane then took off to carry 23 tons of supply needed to fight coronavirus, from Istanbul to New York, to the Americans, via Tel Aviv.

Around one week ago, the Port2Port website had announced that El Al was planning to organize a regular cargo line to Turkey that would start operating on May 24th.

The flights will carry export and import cargos from Turkey. The airlines currently operating cargo flights on the same route are Turkish Airlines and another Turkish cargo company.      

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