Korean Air now flies to Israel PDF Print E-mail
Monday, 29 September 2008 18:42
korean_air.jpg   After ten years in which there were no flights from Korea to Israel, South Korea's airline Korean Air inaugurated its first passenger flight to Ben-Gurion Airport on 25 September.  Korean Air, the ninth largest airline in the world, will be the first [read more] 
After ten years in which there were no flights from Korea to Israel, South Korea's airline Korean Air inaugurated its first passenger flight to Ben-Gurion Airport on 25 September.  Korean Air, the ninth largest airline in the world, will be the first airline from the Far East to fly to Israel.  It will operate three weekly flights on the Seoul-Tel Aviv route, with continuing flights also available to destinations like Japan and China.  Although it had planned to fly 747 Combi planes that accommodate 280 passengers and cargo transport, due to unanticipated high demand for the flights it switched to the Boeing 747-400 wide body model that carries close to 400 passengers instead.  As of Erev Rosh Hashanah, even the larger flights are filled almost to capacity, according to Haaretz.

According to the Minister of Tourism, Ruhama Avraham-Belila, around 90,000 Asian tourists visited Israel from January through August, an increase of about 25% from the same period last year.  Surveys indicated that within a decade Asian tourism will comprise around a fourth of all outgoing tourism traffic in the world.  This fact, combined with the anticipated recession in the USA, makes it important for Israel to develop a market for Israeli tourism in the Far East in order to bring in a significant portion of this huge market. 

  Korean Air’s inaugural flight was met at Ben Gurion airport with a festive reception attended by senior diplomats and tourism officials.  It is the culmination of intensive work by the Ministry of Tourism with senior Korean entities and is part of a policy to ‘open up the skies’ and remove barriers to the flow of tourism to Israel.  The Korean Airlines route to Israel should substantially increase the amount of tourism from Asia and that from Korea in particular.  Most of the Asian tourism to Israel is from the large Christian population in South Korea, and it is believed that there is good growth potential for this area. The opening of the route is expected to double number of Korean tourists in next few years and officials hope that it will pave the way toward additional Asian airlines operating to Israel.