Are the big three U.S. airlines boycotting Israel? Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) seems to think that might be the case. And he makes a very good point.
In an Aug. 28 letter to the CEOs of American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines, Torres, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, expressed concern about the airlines’ decisions to suspend service to Israel since shortly after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 — a ban that was imposed by the airlines themselves, without any order or directive from the U.S. State Department or the Federal Aviation Administration that the flights were unsafe.
Torres’ letter acknowledges that it is appropriate for the airlines to suspend service based upon safety concerns as defined by the FAA but asserts that the unilateral suspension of air travel to Israel indefinitely — and in the case of American Airlines, until mid-2025 — has the practical effect of a boycott against the Jewish state.
According to Torres: “Given the arbitrary length of the suspension, one could be forgiven for thinking that the BDS movement has taken over the American aviation industry without anyone even noticing, much less crying foul.”
El Al is the sole carrier currently offering direct flights from America to Israel. That effective monopoly on the route has proven very profitable for El Al, but costly for travelers. And single carrier service also makes flight opportunities less available for travelers.
The absence of competition bothers Torres, as does the declared U.S. carrier concern about the safety of flying into Tel Aviv. He therefore asked, “By what logic, and in what universe is it safe for El Al to travel to Israel, but too dangerous for American Airlines, Delta and United to do so?” Further, Torres pointed out that UAE carriers FlyDubai, Etihad and Wizz Air Abu Dhabi continue to fly to Israel without incident.
For almost a full year, American, Delta and United have been involved in an on-again-off-again flight schedule dance for service to Israel that has frustrated and inconvenienced travelers. None of the airlines’ decisions regarding service to Israel have been based on FAA or other government agency warnings regarding airline or customer safety. Instead, the airlines have either unilaterally — or, even more problematic, in concert — withdrawn from the U.S.-Israel flight corridor.
We join Torres in awaiting a response and explanation from each of the airlines. And we hope that the internal review will prompt reconsideration of the suspension of flight service to Israel. In the meantime, we encourage regulatory review of the situation to determine whether any element of the U.S. carrier service suspensions is driven by support for the anti-Israel BDS movement.
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