Security, Planning & Supply delays: Why did Virgin Atlantic decide not to return to Israel?

A few days before the disappointing announcement by Virgin Atlantic that it won't return to Israel, the UK based airline launched a new direct route between Heathrow and King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. "The launch of the route is part of the master plan 'Saudi 2030'", said the UK airline.

If that wasn't enough, the company plans a significant development of its routes to the East, including launch of a new daily route between London and Seoul starting summer 2026.

Virgin Atlantic previously announced that it will return and operate the route to Ben Gurion Airport in October 2025. So why is it now announcing that it will not return to operate the route to Israel at all?

The World Moves On

The answer can be found two paragraphs above us. Although we have seen over the past year and a half since the beginning of the war flexibility and goodwill from many airlines that left, returned, sometimes left again, and returned once more to Israel.

Photo: Shutterstock

But in principle, as it should be, airlines do not plan their flight schedules on a whim but well in advance. Evidence of this is the new Virgin route to Seoul that is scheduled to start in 11 months.

"International regular aviation cannot operate for long without operational certainty", said Kobi Zussman, CEO of IATA in Israel to Passport News last October. Thus, in light of the ongoing war, with the backdrop of the U.S. nuclear talks with Iran, it is difficult to blame the company for prioritizing and planning for the future, which unfortunately includes moving its aircraft to other destinations.

The Supply Question

But that’s not all. In recent years, the whole industry suffers from significant delays in the aircraft supply chains, both from Boeing and Airbus.

Virgin Atlantic: Photo: Shutterstock

Currently, Virgin Atlantic's fleet includes 45 mixed Boeing and Airbus aircraft. 11 aircraft are on order, all wide-body Airbus A330-900 models. These are set to replace the entire older A330-300 fleet (which the company had previously flown to Israel), which numbers fewer - 8 aircraft. Therefore, any delay in the delivery of aircraft could lead to a cascading problem in flight operations, as the company intends to sell tickets based on the number of seats it plans to have available at any given time.

In such a situation, routes that are suspended or future ones that are not active are the first to pay the price, and it could be that this consideration was on the minds of Virgin's management.

What all of that has to do with Turkey?

Hours before the announcement from Virgin Atlantic, it was reported that the slots at Ben Gurion Airport - those time windows available to airlines, will be canceled for Turkish airlines, Turkish Airlines and Pegasus - a move that could determine that the companies will not return to fly to Israel.

Photo: Shutterstock

But despite the proximity, these are two completely different cases. While Virgin has been careful throughout the war to specify return dates to Israel (even if it doesn't ultimately happen), sources in the aviation industry say that communication with the Turkish airlines has been completely severed since the beginning of the war - quite similar to the nature of all Israeli-Turkish relations since October 7, 2023.

And despite everything, it should be remembered that in the end, it's a big business and even if things seem very certain right now, there have been cases in the past, and not a few, where airlines that seemed unlikely to ever return to operate specific routes did come back and renewed them. In the end, it’s all about money.