Tel Aviv Air, A New German Airline Flying To Israel

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: July 19, 2021

11 comments

There’s a new airline planning on launching operations in a couple of months, and tickets are expected to go on sale soon.

In this post:

Tel Aviv Air plans Hamburg to Tel Aviv flights

Tel Aviv Air is a new Hamburg-based airline that plans to launch flights to Tel Aviv as of September 19, 2021. The airline initially intends to operate the roughly 2,000 mile flight (~4.5 hours in each direction) twice weekly, and tickets should go on sale as of late July on Tel Aviv Air’s website.

Tel Aviv Air will operate this service with a Boeing 737-800, featuring 189 seats. The plane will include a premium economy section featuring 14 seats (including blocked middle seats), and then the rest of the plane will be in a standard configuration.

When operations launch, Tel Aviv Air will be operating with a 737 leased from Enter Air, which is a Polish charter airline that operates a fleet of over two dozen aircraft.

Enter Air will be operating Tel Aviv Air’s flights

Who is behind Tel Aviv Air?

Tel Aviv Air was founded in late 2020 by Shlomo Almagor and Paul Scodellaro, who have both been in the travel industry for a long time. Almagor had a travel company focused on Israel, while Scodellaro was a sales manager for Germania.

The two claim to know the country, the route, and the potential customers very well. The target for this route are business travelers, tourists, and travel groups (so basically everyone). The company claims that the catchment area for the flight includes nearly 12 million people in Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony and Bremen. It’s also mentioned that around 6,000 people of Jewish faith live in the north German communities, and that they’re an important target for trips to friends and relatives.

The company has financial backing — Beteiligungsgesellschaft Hamburg GmbH (BTG) is involved as a silent partner, and the financing model is secured by Bürgschaftsgemeinschaft Hamburg GmbH (BG).

Tel Aviv Air’s surprising revenue goals

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, but in the first full financial year, Tel Aviv Air expects sales of nine million Euros. I hope the airline is planning on increasing frequencies significantly, because that seems highly unrealistic to me with twice weekly flights:

With twice weekly service the airline would operate a total of 208 flights (104 flights in each direction)
That’s roughly ~43K Euros of revenue per flight per direction
That’s like selling the plane to 100% capacity with average fares of ~229EUR per person per direction, which is totally unrealistic
As a point of comparison, you can fly ultra low cost carriers roundtrip between Germany and Israel for under 100 Euros, or you can fly full service airlines roundtrip for 200-300 Euros

I hope the airline plans to increase frequencies significantly, and/or has some amazing cargo contract, because otherwise that kind of revenue is not going to happen.

Enter Air’s revenue goals seem ambitious

The problem with one route European airlines

Clearly the people behind the airline see potential for the route between Hamburg and Tel Aviv, which is fair enough. Maybe there is demand — I haven’t dug into the numbers. The route doesn’t currently have any service — meanwhile between Berlin and Tel Aviv you have competition from EasyJet, EL AL, and Israir.

Even so, I don’t really get the concept of these one route airlines in Europe for one simple reason. A European ultra low cost carrier could launch this route if it saw sufficient demand, and it could do so with a significantly better cost structure.

If an airline like EasyJet or Wizz Air decided to launch this route, I’d have to imagine it’s game over for Tel Aviv Air. These airlines can make money selling tickets at a fraction of the cost, with better name recognition and distribution capabilities.

Tel Aviv Air is in trouble if EasyJet launches a similar route

Bottom line

Tel Aviv Air is a new airline that plans to launch twice weekly flights between Hamburg and Tel Aviv as of September 2021. The airline will initially lease a 737 from Polish charter operator Enter Air to operate this flight, though perhaps in the long run will operate with its own plane.

I’m curious to see how this works out. I’m skeptical, for reasons explained above.

What do you make of Tel Aviv Air?

(Tip of the hat to @goren_uri)

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GW Guest

November 8, 2021, 1:17 pm

Your presumptions are pretty wrong. You need to have lived in Hamburg to understand that. For years, since Air Germania went bust, Israelis, Jews and even Arabs living in Hamburg looked for an airline to offer direct flights. Almagor, who was in charge of the HH-TLV line under Air Germania talked to EVERYONE - EasyJet, Lufthansa, all of them said no. The Air Germania line was ALWAYS FULL, I remember trying to book but the flights were full. When I did get to take a flight, there were always waiting lists. When the line was cancelled people were in shock, many people, whole flights, who paid for the tickets, were left without the ticket or money. Air Germania admitted the the direct line to TLV was one of the only profitable ones, why the other airlines passed an opportunity, no idea. "Not enough planes", "previous commitments", etc., were some of the excuses. So yes, this line, from the second biggest city in Germany to Tel Aviv is very logical, thousands of people living here are sick and tired having to pay the double, pass through other countries, spending hours for nothing. And we don't want to go to Berlín either, hours drive, with all due respect. Smaller cities in Europe have direct flights, and if Frankfurt can, Hamburg and north Germany can too. And, by the way, if EasyJets picks up the glove, well, not that a big tragedy for Almagor either, TLV Air is not an airline with planes, pilots, etc., they charter everything. That said, Paul - you're wrong, yes I now you know the stats about pilgrims and so on, but pilgrims who go once in their life to Israel can drive to Berlin or Frankfurt. That's not the reason. The 5 times I took a direct flight forth and/or back, I knew at least several people in the flight, and then there were Israeli tourists, company packages, etc., in the summer tourists to the north and the Frisian islands and even south Dänmark, and -by the way- many many Arabs (one time I think half of the plane spoke Arabic). Germans (I mean "Germanic" Germans) were never the biggest part of the flight.

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Henry Guest

July 20, 2021, 7:55 pm

Tel Aviv Air is only a socalled virtual airline. Enter Air is operating, being chartered by the travel organizer TAA.

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Bostonbali Guest

July 20, 2021, 1:41 am

Morgan - the capital of Israel is Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv.

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UpperDeckJohnny Guest

July 20, 2021, 12:21 am

Let the LCC's of the area try to undermine 2 huge German backers of a Germany based company. You'll see revenge tactics even worse than those tried on Brexit that will prevent any non German company running the route. Of course, I could be wrong about this. PS @Morgan: Tel Aviv was the former capital, Jerusalem now is

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Morgan Diamond

July 19, 2021, 9:44 pm

Odd that they are German based but named after the Israeli capital

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