Etihad Airways has just announced plans to launch regularly scheduled flights between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. This makes Etihad the second UAE-based airline to announce flights, after FlyDubai.
This follows normalization of relations between the two countries, which was first revealed back in mid-August. Part of this new cooperation involves an air service agreement, which allows for commercial flights.
In this post:
Etihad’s new Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv route
Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, will launch once daily nonstop flights between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv as of March 28, 2021 (the flights are already on sale). The airline will operate flights with the following schedule:
EY598 Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv departing 9:45AM arriving 12:10PM
EY599 Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi departing 3:15PM arriving 7:35PM
The route from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv
The 1,311 mile flights are blocked at 3hr25min westbound and 3hr20min eastbound. The flights will be able to use Saudi Arabian airspace, which isn’t something that was possible for flights to & from Israel until recently.
The flight schedule is intended to not only serve local traffic in both markets, but to time well with Etihad’s bank of flights to Australia, China, India, and Thailand, among other destinations.
These will mark Etihad’s first-ever scheduled commercial flights to Israel, but not first flights altogether. Over the summer, Etihad operated two cargo relief flights to Israel, though they weren’t without controversy.
Etihad will “only” use an A321 for the route
Etihad is approaching its Israel service rather modestly. The airline is “just” flying once daily, and will use an Airbus A321 for the route, rather than one of its wide body aircraft.
The A321s that Etihad will use for this route feature 196 seats, including eight business class seats and 188 economy class seats, so that’s quite a dense configuration. Not only that, but these planes won’t even feature seatback entertainment, as Etihad is removing personal televisions from its narrow body fleet.
Etihad’s new A321 economy class seats
The service level we’re actually seeing UAE airlines offer to & from Israel is probably more in line with actual demand than many people may have been expecting. Gulf carriers are known for being excessive, so I’m sure some people thought we might initially be seeing frequent wide body service to & from Israel.
Instead we’re just seeing FlyDubai operate twice daily flights from Dubai with 737s, and Etihad operate once daily flights from Abu Dhabi with A321s. Emirates hasn’t yet formally announced service to Israel, though I’m sure it’ll happen eventually.
It’s clear Gulf carriers are trying harder not to flush money down the drain, and the new service levels to Israel reflect that.
Etihad’s A321 business class seats
Bottom line
Etihad Airways will be launching daily flights between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv as of March 2021. The airline will use A321s for the route, and the flight is timed to connect to Etihad’s route network to the east.
It’s so cool to see new regularly scheduled air service between the UAE and Israel, especially given how quickly this has all happened.
What do you make of Etihad’s new flight to Tel Aviv? Are you surprised the airline is “just” using an A321?
The Emiratis...the new whores of the Middle East...
I was thinking they’re gonna at least use a Boeing 787 or an Airbus A330-200....
Too bad they weren’t opening this route earlier. I flew from TLV to NRT in early January this year on AA miles and I had to do two connections at both AMM and AUH...Waking up in the middle of the night for the 7:45 am Royal Jordanian flight departing TLV, then a long (6+ hrs) layover in AMM...Never wanna do that again and this TLV-AUH flight could’ve saved all my hassle...
Any chance we may see redemptions for North America to TLV via AUH? I think TLV is classified as Europe and not ME in this regard and yes I know we'd be flying over TLV and backtracking but to me that's worth it to use EY J. Thoughts?
I am really excited and l was looking forward to flying with Flydubai from DXB to TLV. The situation however currently in TLV does not look favorable due to the strict lockdown measures so there might not be enough traffic even on the narrow body aircrafts. Most of the hotels and restaurants are all closed. I just hope things change next month
Good to see they starting official flights, hoping by April Covid will go away a little.
As you said, this flight will go and compete mainly with Turkish from Israel on connecting flights to Asia, I am one of those who wouldn't mind booking Etihad to the US but looks like currently they don't have a fare for it. The A321 won't matter much, it's a 3 hour flight, and we got used to having Europeans business class on most flights to Europe anyway
@Chris
They would have invented the A31000 specially for the route—a 12 and a half floor flying resort complete with an 18-hole indoor golf range and a beluga whale farm.
If it wasn’t for COVID, and the impacts it has had on aviation, I am sure they would have used A380s for the service.