After more than two years, American Airlines has confirmed that it is resuming flights between New York JFK and Tel Aviv from the end of March 2026. The airline has not served Israel since the deadly Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023.
According to Israeli media, the airline’s decision was partly based on a personal appeal by Israel’s Minister of Transportation, Miri Regev, during a meeting with AA executives as part of a recent official trip to the United States.
While Regev can take some credit for American’s decision to resume non-stop flights to Tel Aviv, it appears as if the airline has been plotting its return to Israel for some time now.
In fact, last week, American Airlines published a job advert for language-qualified flight attendants who are hired to work certain routes. In this latest hiring round, AA was looking for new flight attendants who spoke Czech, Dutch, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, and Hebrew.
The job ad created a fair amount of speculation that American Airlines would only now be hiring Hebrew-speaking flight attendants because it was intending to restart flights to Tel Aviv.
It appears as if those suspicions were correct.
In an emailed statement to PYOK on Friday, a spokesperson for American Airlines confirmed that the carrier will operate its first non-stop flight from New York JFK to Tel Aviv in more than two years on March 28, 2026. Tickets are expected to go on sale on October 27, 2025.
The route will be operated daily by a widebody Boeing 777-200 with the outbound flight departing New York JFK at 11:25 pm and arriving at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport the following evening at 5 pm.
The return flight will depart Tel Aviv at 12:35 am and arrive in New York at 5:25 am the same day.
To mark the resumption of flights, American Airlines will use the flight number AA-18 for the outbound flight. In Jewish culture, the number 18 holds special significance and is corresponds to the Hebrew word chai, which means ‘life.’
American Airlines is the last of the Big Three US carriers to resume flights to Israel, following United Airlines and Delta.
While United was keen to resume flights ahead of its rivals, American Airlines chose a far more cautious approach, not wanting to restart flights until it was confident that the security situation in the region had improved to such an extent that it wouldn’t run the risk of canceling flights at a moment’s notice.
United Airlines certainly ran into that issue on a couple of occasions. The airline returned to Israel in March 2024, but less than a month later, it was forced to evacuate pilots and flight attendants out of Tel Aviv after Iran fired a volley of ballistic missiles towards Israel.
In contrast, the American Airlines pilots’ union had told its members to refuse to fly to Israel, describing the region as a warzone.
More and more airlines are now returning to Israel, although the mood amongst aircrew remains very mixed. While some crewmembers are keen to return to Tel Aviv, there are others who have deeply held ethical concerns, as well as fears that the security situation could, once again, deteriorate with little notice.
Airlines are unlikely to be very sympathetic to aircrew who refuse to work flights to Tel Aviv. With a ceasefire now in effect, they will argue that the security situation on the ground has improved to a point that safety fears are no longer warranted.
When it comes to ethical concerns, well, airlines believe that it isn’t much different from many global destinations they fly to. Whether that be other countries in the Middle East or Africa, Asia, or the Caribbean, there are human rights concerns in many countries.
I doubt that any tourists will want to set foot in Israel.