Emirates Adds Third Daily Flight to Tel Aviv

DALLAS — Emirates Airlines (EK) has announced that it will be adding a third daily flight between Israel and Dubai starting May 1. This comes less than a year after the airline launched its first commercial service to Israel as the market between the new nations have grown since diplomatic relations opened between the UAE and Israel.

Since June 2022, EK has flown over 180,000 travelers between the two nations. According to the airport's annual report, Dubai International Airport (DXB) is also the top outbound destination in 2022 from Tel Aviv Ben Gurion (TLV).

The third daily flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft which has a capacity of 360 seats. Flight EK935 will depart Dubai at 7:30 PM and arrive in Tel Aviv at 10:00 PM. The return leg, flight EK936 will depart Tel Aviv at 11:55 PM and arrive in Dubai the following day at 4:05 AM. The flight time has been specially chosen to allow for easy connections from Dubai to Australia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Besides EK, El Al (LY), Israir, Arkia (IZ), and flydubai (FZ) all operate flights between TLV and DXB. During the summer season, there will be up to 13 daily flights between the two airports. EK, along with its subsidiary FZ, will fly a total of seven daily flights. Tel Aviv is the only destination that both EK and FZ serve.

Flydubai has been flying between the UAE and Israel since November 2020 using a Boeing 737-8 aircraft. Furthermore, Wizz Air (W6), LY, and Etihad (EY) all connect Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi.

Emirates A6-EGB Boeing 777-300ER(Year of the Fiftieth Livery). Photo: Alberto Cucini/Airways

Normalized Relations Between Israel and UAE

In August 2020, Bahrain and the UAE normalized relations with Israel, including an air service agreement allowing commercial flights.

Etihad was the first airline from the region to start service to Tel Aviv, which was followed by FZ in November 2020 and then Gulf Air (GF) which connected Bahrain to Tel Aviv in December 2020. Morocco also normalized relations with Israel in 2020, leading Royal Air Maroc (AT) to launch daily flights between Casablanca and Tel Aviv in March 2022.

In February 2023, Oman announced that it would open its airspace to all airlines, which included Israeli aircraft. This came after Saudi Arabia allowed Israeli airlines to use its airspace for flights eastbound for China and India.

Featured image: A6-EGT, Emirates Boeing 777-300ER, KEWR EWR. Photo: Yifei Yu/Airways