Virgin Atlantic Cancels Tel Aviv Flights, Permanently

Virgin Atlantic is officially discontinuing service to Israel, not that it has operated in quite some time, anyway (thanks to Neil for flagging this)…

Virgin Atlantic cuts London to Tel Aviv route

Virgin Atlantic has announced that it’s permanently canceling its route between London (LHR) and Tel Aviv (TLV). The airline first launched this service in late 2019, with once daily flights. Aside from a pause during the start of the pandemic, the airline operated this service through October 2023, and even increased frequencies to twice daily.

Virgin Atlantic exclusively flies wide body jets, and doesn’t have any short haul flights. At 2,233 miles, this was by far Virgin Atlantic’s shortest route.

Up until now, the plan was for Virgin Atlantic to resume the route as of the start of the IATA 2025-2026 winter schedule, which kicks in as of late October 2025. However, after a “thorough review,” the airline has decided to no longer bring back this service. So it’d being cut permanently, or at least as permanent as anything in this industry is.

Why Virgin Atlantic is cutting Israel flights permanently

So, why is Virgin Atlantic canceling its Israel service? It comes down to a combination of the carrier’s small fleet and a focus on higher growth routes. In other words, the airline thinks it can make more money flying aircraft elsewhere.

Of course since October 2023, the issue has been being able to reliably operate this service, given the war, and the impact it has had on airline operations. Only EL AL has been operating flights to and from Israel consistently, due to some unique features of the carrier.

So it’s not clear to what extent this decision is driven by the uncertainty with flying to Israel, rather than the profitability of the route, if it actually can operate.

I think there’s one other major consideration here. Keep in mind that Delta owns a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic. When Virgin Atlantic first launched Tel Aviv flights, they were timed for US connections, so the idea was to create all kinds of one-stop routings between US cities and Tel Aviv.

However, in late 2023, Delta and EL AL launched a strategic partnership, and I suspect the plan is to continue to grow that over time. With Delta partnering with EL AL, Virgin Atlantic’s route from London to Tel Aviv isn’t as important. For that matter, in mid-2024, Virgin Atlantic and EL AL also launched a partnership, including a codeshare agreement.

Bottom line

Virgin Atlantic was supposed to resume Tel Aviv flights as of October 2025, but that will no longer happen. The airline has made the decision to cancel this service, after a review of its network, as clearly it views other destinations as being higher priority.

I have to imagine that both Delta and Virgin Atlantic partnering with EL AL plays into this, as the need to route Israel-bound passengers through London on Virgin Atlantic isn’t as much of a strategic priority as it was pre-pandemic.

What do you make of Virgin Atlantic cutting Tel Aviv flights?