El Al To Buy Ex-Singapore Airlines 747

[TallDutch]

El Al Israel Airlines said on Monday it agreed to buy a Boeing 747-400 made in 1994, currently being leased by Singapore Airlines, as part of its fleet expansion plans.

An El Al spokeswoman said Singapore Airlines leases the plane from Wells Fargo Bank and will be returning it to the lessor later this year.

El Al will invest USD$50 million in the aircraft and said it would receive the plane no later than December 2008. It will use USD$10 million from its own funds for the purchase while the rest will come from loans from a foreign bank.

http://news.airwise.com/story/view/1200301739.html

[Mateo]

Interesting that they're going to add another 744 instead of a 772, which means they're targeting the NYC/LON side of their network, rather than the LAX/YYZ half. If I had to take a guess, I'd say the new 7-4 winds up back on EWR, frees a 772 to run MIA full time, and the 762 goes to their expanding Asia network (does it have the legs for Seoul? - Tons of Korean tourists in Israel). If the stories out of Atlanta are true, more than half of DL's traffic on the ATL-TLV flight are connecting through from South Florida, and there's no reason El Al can't grab a large chunk of that (plus provide an easy connection for Central/South America pax - which is not an insignificant number, US visa hassles nonwithstanding).

[adam613]

Interesting that they're going to add another 744 instead of a 772, which means they're targeting the NYC/LON side of their network, rather than the LAX/YYZ half. If I had to take a guess, I'd say the new 7-4 winds up back on EWR, frees a 772 to run MIA full time, and the 762 goes to their expanding Asia network (does it have the legs for Seoul? - Tons of Korean tourists in Israel). If the stories out of Atlanta are true, more than half of DL's traffic on the ATL-TLV flight are connecting through from South Florida, and there's no reason El Al can't grab a large chunk of that (plus provide an easy connection for Central/South America pax - which is not an insignificant number, US visa hassles nonwithstanding).

The 767-200ER has plenty of range to get from Seoul to Tel Aviv...I'm surprised they need that route though. There aren't a lot of Jews in Korea :)

[Mateo]

Jews in Korea? Not really. Korean tourists in Israel? Loads! One thing about the Asian markets, though, is that they're very sensitive to the situation - in 2000, I was tripping over Koreans in the Old City. In 2002, well, the whole country was a ghost town, and by 2005, foreign tourists had started coming back again. The Asia network right now stands at BOM, BKK, HKG, and PEK. I'd think Seoul before Tokyo, unless they go to add frequency [since most of those are 3/wk]