Emirates adds third daily flight to Tel Aviv

Emirates is expanding its operations to Israel by adding a third daily flight from Dubai International Airport (DXB) to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV), starting May 1, 2023.

Emirates’ third-daily flight to Tel Aviv will utilize the airline’s Boeing 777-300ER, with 360 seats in total.

The additional flight will operate on the following schedule:

EK 935 departs Dubai at 19:30 local time and arrives in Tel Aviv at 22:00 local time.

EK 936 leaves Tel Aviv at 23:55 arriving in Dubai at 04:05 local time the following day.

Emirates claims that the new flight schedule has been carefully planned in order to allow travelers from Tel Aviv the full-day experience in Dubai, with an early arrival and late departure times.

Emirates had its first official touchdown to Israel when it launched its inaugural flight to Tel Aviv in June 2022. Since then, over 180,000 passengers have traveled on Emirates to and from Dubai and Tel Aviv.

According to the latest annual report released by Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, Dubai ranked as the top outbound destination by passenger volumes in 2022.

The third daily flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv demonstrates the significantly improved relations between the UAE and Israel.

The two countries have been ‘nominal enemies’ since the 1960s.

In 2020, then-US President Donald Trump unveiled his administration’s Middle East peace plans, called ‘Peace to Prosperity: a vision to improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people’. The plan’s vision is to bring the “most realistic solution to a problem that has plagued the region for far too long”.

Since then, Middle Eastern carriers have started inaugural flights to Israel, with Etihad being the first airline in the region to fly to Tel Aviv. It was soon followed by Fly Dubai, which launched its first flight to Tel Aviv in November 2020, and Gulf Air, which instigated flights from Bahrain to Tel Aviv in December 2020.