The reduction in the number of airlines flying to Israel due to the ongoing military conflict along the country’s borders has led a group of Israeli tech entrepreneurs to start their own airline.
The new venture, TechAir, aims to launch nonstop flights between Tel-Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) and New York-JFK (although some initial reports pointed towards Newark-EWR as a possible alternative gateway) before the end of January 2025.
This initiative has come together via the ‘Israeli High-Tech Headquarters’, a forum that gathers founders and managers of technology companies who need to travel to the US on regular business trips.
As of early 2025, the only airline flying nonstop between Tel Aviv and the US is flag carrier El Al.
A search on Cirium’s Diio database shows that, in December 2024, El Al operated 389 flights between Israel and six US destinations: New York-JFK, Newark (EWR), Boston (BOS), Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Miami (MIA) and Los Angeles (LAX), offering a total of 102,713 seats in both directions.
In addition to the limited choice of frequencies and product, this de facto monopoly has led also to what many in the Israeli business community regard as relatively high fares.
For example, searching El Al’s website on January 8, 2025, for Tel Aviv-JFK flights over the coming weeks reveals no availability in economy class until well into February, and the remaining business class seats selling for between $US4,000 and $5,800.
The other alternative for Israeli passengers is to connect via European airports. However, this may involve much longer and more inconvenient journeys as well as relatively high prices, since air connections between Israel and Europe have also been affected by route suspensions and cancellations.
As such, one of the purposes of the new airline would be to offer an alternative at lower prices. TechAir’s website lists pre-launch prices for economy class flights in the US$900-1550 range, although it warns that prices may go up over time.
TechAir will be a virtual carrier – that is, an airline that doesn’t have its own Air Operator Certificate (AOC) and relies on wet-leased aircraft operated by an established third-party airline, while taking care of its own marketing and commercialization.
Flights will depart Israel around midnight and arrive in New York in the early morning. TechAir’s operations are expected to be seasonal for the time being, with up to 36 flights running between January and March 2025.
The promoters of this project have opened a website on which it is possible to register interest and pre-book flights. The final decision on whether to launch appears to be contingent on reaching a certain threshold of bookings.
Although initial media reports pointed out to Portuguese ACMI and charter carrier EuroAtlantic as a possible wet-lease operator, the TechAir website specifies that the flights will be operated by an Israeli airline using Airbus A330-900neo aircraft. However, there is currently no airline in Israel with this type of aircraft in its fleet.
AeroTime has reached out to TechAir for further comment.