Today, Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Mike Lawler led Greater New York City Area Representatives Clarke, Gillen, Goldman, Gottheimer, Kean, LaLota, Latimer, Meeks, Menendez, Meng, Pou, Sherrill, Suozzi, and Torres in a bipartisan letter to the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration supporting the expedited review and fair consideration of additional Israeli airlines’ bid to fly directly between New York City area airports and Tel Aviv. 

The current situation of only one airline flying directly between the Greater New York City area and Israel has led to record-high prices for our constituents and record-high profits for El Al. For example, The Israeli news outlet Ynet reported in March of 2024 that “Flights to the U.S. during the Passover holiday are currently sold upward of $2,930 for a [roundtrip] flight.” Additionally, the Times of Israel recently reported that El Al profits rose nearly 260% in the third quarter of 2024 compared to a year earlier. 

The members write: “While our strong preference would be for U.S. carriers to resume their service from the greater New York City area airports that serve our districts, unfortunately, these airlines continue to extend suspensions of their service to TLV. In the absence of U.S. carriers flying this critical route for our constituents, we strongly support additional Israeli carriers providing service between these two deeply connected communities to provide competition and lower customer prices.” 

The members continue: “We believe that there must be competition between airlines in the greater New York City area and the Tel Aviv market in order to ensure American consumers and their loved ones are not price gouged in this time of war. Crucial to that effort is your expedited consideration of any application that may come before you from an Israeli airline, especially for low-cost direct service between the greater New York area and Tel Aviv. Ensuring that such service is able to begin swiftly will provide a much-needed additional link between our communities and Israel, when such a connection is more critical than ever to many of our constituents.” 

The current situation is significantly impacting many families in our districts’ financial abilities to be together with loved ones in this difficult time of war. The members urged the Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration to prioritize granting approval for more Israeli airlines to fly directly to the greater New York City area from Tel Aviv, in order to increase competition and bring down prices for their constituents as soon as possible. 

The full letter can be found here.