Israeli Transport Minister Miri Regev warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday that more than 2.4 million flight tickets could be canceled within days unless U.S. military refueling aircraft crowding Ben Gurion and Ramon airports are urgently relocated.

In a letter to Netanyahu, Regev said the Israel Airports Authority faces a hard deadline on Tuesday, June 16, when it must formally notify airlines of potential mass cancellations if no solution is found to a mounting parking shortage at Ben Gurion Airport.

The source of the crisis: approximately 72 U.S. refueling aircraft are currently parked at Ben Gurion Airport, occupying more than half of available parking capacity, while another 26 aircraft are stationed at Ramon Airport, taking up roughly 90 percent of parking spaces there. The planes were deployed as part of the American military presence supporting operations against Iran, and have remained at the civilian airports as the broader conflict winds toward a ceasefire framework.

Regev wrote that unless at least half the refuelers are removed by Tuesday, the government would be forced to notify more than two million citizens that their summer flights are canceled, including those of people planning to travel to Uman for Rosh Hashanah.

She warned the cancellations would cause “direct economic damage of billions of shekels” to airlines, tourism, and the wider economy, and said the situation could harm Israel’s reputation as an aviation destination. “Mass cancellations of summer and holiday flights at a time when the Israeli public needs relief and normalcy more than ever will harm national morale and civic resilience,” Regev wrote.

The minister said talks are ongoing with the United States to relocate the aircraft to nearby countries, but acknowledged that option is not feasible in the immediate term. She called instead for some of the U.S. refuelers to be moved to Israeli Air Force bases, and urged Netanyahu to instruct the Air Force to shift some of its own aircraft to civilian airstrips – including Rosh Pina, Megiddo, Sde Teiman, and Ein Yahav – to free up space at the main airports.

This is the second letter Regev has sent on the issue in less than three weeks. On May 26, she wrote to Netanyahu, the defense minister, and the acting head of the National Security Council, warning that the presence of U.S. aircraft had created what she called an “unprecedented distortion” in which civilian aviation was effectively under an operational lockdown even as passenger demand was recovering.

Israel Airports Authority CEO Sharon Kedmi warned Thursday that without a solution, airlines would soon have to begin notifying passengers of cancellations, estimating that “one in every four passengers will receive a cancellation notice.” yahoo
Despite the escalating warnings, the Prime Minister’s Office did not respond to the letter, and airlines declined to comment.

In comments to Ynet, Regev struck a careful diplomatic tone, saying: “We are full of appreciation for the Americans and want them to remain here. We simply want to distribute the burden across the country and reduce the load at Ben Gurion.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)