Israel-Hamas War Is Already Weighing on the Air Travel Industry

The war in Israel and Gaza has already begun to slow the air travel industry.

Flight bookings worldwide are 20% below 2019 levels, dropping by 5 percentage points in the three weeks following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in Israel that killed 1,400 people, compared with the same period prior to the attacks, according to travel analytics firm ForwardKeys. 

In the three weeks before the outbreak of the war, flight bookings from the Middle Eastern countries were down by just 3% from 2019 levels, but fell by 9 percentage points in the three weeks after. Travel from the Americas was the hardest hit, slowing by 10 percentage points in the three weeks after the attacks, and Asia Pacific, Europe (which includes Israel) and Africa each slowed by 2 percentage points.

Flight bookings to the Middle East, which had recovered to 13% above pre-pandemic levels, plummeted by 26 percentage points following Oct. 7 to 13% below 2019 levels. Flight bookings to Israel have been particularly hard hit, falling by 155 percentage points during the period — meaning that in addition to there being no new bookings, existing flights were canceled. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon saw the next-largest drops in the region.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, United Airlines and American Airlines suspended direct flights to Israel. Delta Air Lines also canceled flights and on Monday announced that it would continue to cancel flights between the U.S. and Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv due to the ongoing conflict.

“This Israel-Hamas conflict is a catastrophic, heartbreaking, human tragedy that we are all seeing daily on our TV screens,” said Olivier Ponti, vice president of Insights at ForwardKeys. “It is bound to put people off traveling to the region, but also has dented consumer confidence in traveling elsewhere too.”

ForwardKeys' analysis uses the International Air Transport Association’s airline ticketing, flight search and scheduling data, which includes major international carriers, but does not factor in budget carriers.

The drops in bookings are expected to put a dent in air travel recovery through the end of the year. Based on bookings levels prior to the attacks, air travel was expected to reach 95% of 2019 levels in the fourth quarter of this year; however, as of late last month, the outlook fell back to 88%, according to Ponti. In the Middle East, the forecast fell by 16 percentage points to 110% from 126%.

Israel's national airline, El Al, on the other hand, ramped up flights to and from the country in the days following the attacks to shuttle in army reservists. The carrier's chief executive Dina Ben Tal Ganancia said the airline flew about 250,000 passengers to and from the country in the first two weeks of the conflict, according to Reuters.