Emirates has added a third daily flight to Tel Aviv, which takes off at the start of May – extremely little lead time. It comes less than 11 months after the Middle East giant first launched Tel Aviv flights. As discussed later in the article, the market has grown enormously since Israel and the UAE began recognizing each other in 2020.

Emirates: three daily to Tel Aviv

Coming shortly after receiving approval to add more services, Emirates' third daily Tel Aviv flight takes effect on May 1st. Operating overnight from Tel Aviv, its schedule is as follows, with all times local. The Boeing 777-300ER is used on all three flights.

• Dubai-Tel Aviv: EK933, 08:15-10:25
• Dubai-Tel Aviv: EK931, 15:20-17:35
• Dubai-Tel Aviv: EK935, 19:30-22:00 ← new
• Tel Aviv-Dubai: EK934, 12:45-16:50
• Tel Aviv-Dubai: EK932, 19:35-23:45
• Tel Aviv-Dubai: EK936, 23:55-04:05+1 ← new

Click here for Tel Aviv-Dubai flights.

Up to 13 daily flights this summer

Aside from Emirates, flydubai, Arkia, El Al, and Israir all operate between Tel Aviv and Dubai. This northern summer (March 26th-October 28th), there are as many as 13 daily departing flights, according to the latest Cirium data. On days with 13, there are about 3,000 one-way seats for sale (double for both ways).

When Emirates' services are added to narrowbody partner flydubai, they have seven daily services. In May, they leave Dubai at 07:05 (flydubai), 08:15 (Emirates), 09:50 (flydubai), 15:20 (Emirates), 19:30 (Emirates), 20:25 (flydubai), and 20:55 (flydubai).

From Tel Aviv, they go at 01:00 (flydubai), 11:00 (flydubai), 12:45 (Emirates), 13:25 (flydubai), 19:35 (Emirates), 23:55 (Emirates), and 23:55 (flydubai). Looking ahead, the dual 23:55 departure remains, although that may change.

Unbelievable development

Before the normalization of relations, booking data shows that the point-to-point (P2P) market (i.e., those simply traveling between Tel Aviv and Dubai) only had about 13,000 roundtrip passengers in 2019. Everyone had to travel via somewhere. The vast majority necessarily flew with Royal Jordanian via Amman.

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In 2020, when the countries recognized each other, and, helped by the first non-stops P2P traffic rose to about 32,000. In 2021, it had grown to about 137,000, while 347,000 was reached in 2022.

In other words, the P2P market had grown from 18 passengers daily each way in 2019 to 475 in 2022. Last year, about two-thirds of passengers, booked tickets in Israel. They have discovered the UAE has a holiday destination.

271,000 passengers transited Dubai

The above numbers relate only to the P2P market. Obviously, transit passengers are vital too. In 2022, an estimated 271,000 passengers transited Dubai with Emirates and/or flydubai.

Examining where they went reveals that, to the surprise of no one, Tel Aviv-Bangkok was the most popular market. Manila, Male, Phuket, Singapore, Melbourne, Colombo, Sydney, São Paulo, and Bengaluru completed the top 10.

Click here for Tel Aviv-Bangkok flights.

What do you make of it all? Let us know in the comments.

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