I don't understand why El Al doesnt fly this route, Which on the other hand is overserved by TK and Pegasus with more than 10 daily Flights in combination

As you said, overcapacity. El Al may also want to avoid flying to Muslim-majority countries.

A few reasons I can think of...

At one point, the Turks refused to allow EL AL to deploy its standard security regime in Turkey which consists of armed security personnel and other measures that the Turks wouldn't accept.

Ever since the diplomatic spat between Israel and Turkey a few years ago, Israeli tourism to Turkey dropped a lot.

The already high frequency of flights and competition on this line.

Virtually all of the existing service is in order to connect passengers to other destinations outside of turkey (which EL AL probably serves directly anyway).

Softaero wrote:

As you said, overcapacity. El Al may also want to avoid flying to Muslim-majority countries.

I meant overcapacity from Turkish carriers. Obviously there's space for a daily EL AL 738 on TLV-IST. most of people flying on TK and Pegasus often do TLV-IST/SAW-Europe, but I suppose EL AL could cater P2P demand.

EL AL avoids Arab countries, not muslim majority countries. Although these conditions go together. Non arab muslim majority cities are for example Istanbul, Karachi, Dhaka, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, etc

flybaby wrote:

Ever since the diplomatic spat between Israel and Turkey a few years ago, Israeli tourism to Turkey dropped a lot.

Here are tourist numbers from Israel last 3 years from the Turkish Ministry of Tourism:
-2014: 188,608
-2015: 224,568
-2016: 293,988

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-to ... rochement/

El Al used to serve Istanbul and Antalya, IST ended just a decade ago or so, Cairo, Amman, Tehran and Tashkent were alsos erved in the past.

Arkia served Tashkent in past and currently does Amman.

El Al flies charters to Zanzibar which is nearly 100% Muslim with some Arab ancestry.

There is absolutely no way on Earth that El Al could compete with Turkish Airlines on service , price , convenience , new aircraft , inflight entertainment , quality of staff.... just no way El Al could compete

CanadaFair wrote:

El Al flies charters to Zanzibar which is nearly 100% Muslim with some Arab ancestry.

I think these operate for Arkia or Israir.

At this stage its a matter of economics. Things like Issues related to the deployment of armed security staff have come and gone.

Turkish carriers like PC, TK and the charter operators have quite low-cost base, something certainly El Al mainline can't match. Its UP product likely also does not get close.

For trivia - TK has been the largest foreign airline at TLV for quite a few years, and is very much frequented by Israeli travelers. Matter of fact TLV is often one of the to 5 O&D markets on much of TKs longhaul network.

As others said, almost all of the TLV-IST/SAW traffic is connecting traffic. LY's traffic is almost all O&D, and unfortunately the traffic from Israel to Turkey is way lower than what it used to be in the 90s and the early 2000s, thanks to Erdoğan.

nadavatar64 wrote:

As others said, almost all of the TLV-IST/SAW traffic is connecting traffic. LY's traffic is almost all O&D, and unfortunately the traffic from Israel to Turkey is way lower than what it used to be in the 90s and the early 2000s, thanks to Erdoğan.

Maybe you missed post #5 and the linked article " Israeli tourists flock to Turkey "

LAXintl wrote:

nadavatar64 wrote:

As others said, almost all of the TLV-IST/SAW traffic is connecting traffic. LY's traffic is almost all O&D, and unfortunately the traffic from Israel to Turkey is way lower than what it used to be in the 90s and the early 2000s, thanks to Erdoğan.

Maybe you missed post #5 and the linked article " Israeli tourists flock to Turkey "

Even if so, most of the traffic is going to Antalya and there is no way LY is going to fly over there. I dont even think other Israeli airlines like Israir, Arkia or Sundor(which is owned by LY) will fly to Turkey anytime soon.

This is simple its over served. They would rather fly routes that make more money.

Luisvalero wrote:

Softaero wrote:

As you said, overcapacity. El Al may also want to avoid flying to Muslim-majority countries.

I meant overcapacity from Turkish carriers. Obviously there's space for a daily EL AL 738 on TLV-IST. most of people flying on TK and Pegasus often do TLV-IST/SAW-Europe, but I suppose EL AL could cater P2P demand.

EL AL avoids Arab countries, not muslim majority countries. Although these conditions go together. Non arab muslim majority cities are for example Istanbul, Karachi, Dhaka, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, etc

It's not that EL AL "avoids Arab countries". It's that most arab and muslim majority countries don't recognise Israel. Israeli airlines don't even get overflight rights, not to mention traffic and landing rights in these countries. That's the reason for the oft-discussed-here circuitous routings of LY's flights to BOM, BKK, HKG, PEK, JNB and in the past GRU as well as other destinations too, I'm sure.

LAXintl wrote:

At this stage its a matter of economics. Things like Issues related to the deployment of armed security staff have come and gone.

Turkish carriers like PC, TK and the charter operators have quite low-cost base, something certainly El Al mainline can't match. Its UP product likely also does not get close.

For trivia - TK has been the largest foreign airline at TLV for quite a few years, and is very much frequented by Israeli travelers. Matter of fact TLV is often one of the to 5 O&D markets on much of TKs longhaul network.

Very true. When I was a TK agent in IAH, some days there would be more people going to Tell Aviv than Istanbul. And Israelis pay to sit in J too. If we were delayed, people would ask about their connections, and I'd tell them not to worry because TK practically has around-the-clock flights between IST and TLV, ATH too.