All the news about Israeli tourism

Roby Herskowicz, country manager of Brussels Airlines in Israel is not concerned at the cessation of the code share agreement with El Al.  “Nothing is standing in our way if we decide to increase the frequency of flights to Israel; in all modesty, Brussels Airlines put Belgium on the tourist map of Israel.”

 “That the code share agreement between us and El Al has ceased, does not mean that the joint efforts to develop the route between Tel Aviv and Brussels will stop,” so said Roby Herskowicz, the manager of Brussels Airlines in Israel in a conversation with Educational Travel.  According to Herskowicz, the route to Brussels is characterized by a specific sector and is different from the routes of other airlines operating in Israel.

Herskowicz, who announced at the end of last week the end of the code share agreement with El Al, sounded confident that Brussels Airlines will continue to operate its services to Israel.  “On the route to Brussels there is enough room for everyone and for now it has reached a new peak that should be taken advantage of completely.” He explained that there was a shortage of information for Flemish speaking tourists in the country.

Brussels Airlines is also planning to invest in promoting and encouraging tourism to Israel with the aim of filling flights. According to Herskowicz, he isn’t satisfied in selling air tickets to passengers forced to fly the route, but to develop the traffic and its operations. For this reason El Al offered 9 weekly flights this summer instead of 6.

Increased frequencies? At the moment there is nothing on the horizon, but in the future perhaps it will be possible. “We are focused on our targets and I am sure we will achieve them,” he promised. “Nothing is standing in our way and if we decide it’s worthwhile we will open up the route.”

Brussels Airlines, which recently joined the Lufthansa group, has already begun signing code share agreements.  According to Herskowicz, there is nothing to conclude from the transfer to Lufthansa regarding changes in distribution policy of the company in Israel: “We are quite confused, on one hand managers from the networks are requesting zero commission, on the other hand we are reading about the wars in the media, at the moment we are talking about an increase in synergy and not about distribution policy.