Airlines wrestled with the safety risk of evacuation operations in Israel on Thursday, with Norwegian Air and Dutch KLM canceling flights while Air France was going ahead with a special flight chartered by the French foreign ministry.
Norwegian Air said it had canceled a planned evacuation flight from Tel Aviv to Oslo due to a lack of insurance cover.
Dutch airline KLM said late on Wednesday it had retracted an offer to the Dutch government for a flight to Israel to take Dutch citizens out of the country, citing safety concerns.
Airlines Face Israel Insurance Alert in Wake of Weekend Attacks
But sister airline Air France was pressing ahead with a flight from Paris on Thursday, a spokesperson said.
The two airlines are owned by the same parent group Air France-KLM but are operationally separate.
No explanation was available for the contrasting decisions.
KLM said “the most recent information on the situation in Israel indicates it is not sufficiently possible for a civilian airline to conduct a flight that’s safe for crew and passengers.”
The Dutch foreign ministry said it would send a military plane to Israel on Thursday instead.
Norwegian Air had been due to fly Norwegian and other Nordic citizens stranded in Israel out of the country on Thursday evening. The flight had already been postponed from Wednesday.
“The reason is that the insurance company that Norwegian and a number of other airlines use no longer cover flights to Tel Aviv,” Norwegian said in a statement.
Airlines have faced warnings over insurance cover in the wake of the weekend attacks on Israel by Hamas militants.
Norwegian said it was working with Norway’s foreign ministry to find other solutions. On Tuesday it canceled regular flights from the Swedish and Danish capitals to Tel Aviv until Dec. 19.
Germany’s Lufthansa was sticking to its plans for evacuation flights on Thursday and Friday.
(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom, Bart H. Meijer, Tim Hepher, editing by Terje Solsvik and Deborah Kyvrikosaios)
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