The Israel Airports Authority (IAA) has now announced the closure of Terminal 1 until April 2025.
Today, the IAA issued a dramatic update: Terminal 1 at Ben Gurion Airport will close to international flights for approximately five months, starting this Friday and running until early April 2025. This decision comes against the backdrop of foreign airlines increasingly avoiding operations in Israel due to complex security conditions.
The figures tell the story: In the first nine months of this year, traffic at Terminal 1 dropped by 73% compared to the same period last year. Only 3,700 flights operated through the terminal from January, compared to 14,000 in the previous year. Passenger numbers also fell sharply, from 2.4 million to just 650,000.
Three key low-cost carriers—Hungarian Wizz Air, Irish Ryanair, and British easyJet—once the backbone of Terminal 1’s operations, have all frozen their flights to Israel. Wizz Air announced it would not resume flights until mid-January 2025, while easyJet postponed its return until the end of March 2025. Ryanair has yet to specify a date for resuming operations.
The escalating tensions with Iran are amplifying uncertainty in the aviation sector. More foreign airlines continue to cancel flights to Israel, with no signs of a turnaround in the foreseeable future. The decline in passenger traffic is evident in daily statistics as well: Yesterday, 47,000 passengers were recorded at Ben Gurion, and today’s numbers are expected to reach 44,000, down from the typical daily range of 60,000-70,000.
Under the new arrangements, all international flights will be concentrated in Terminal 3, while Terminal 1 will be used exclusively for domestic flights until further notice. This measure is intended to optimize staff deployment and address the current security personnel shortages at Ben Gurion.
The decision to close Terminal 1 for international flights underscores the depth of Israel’s aviation crisis and reflects IAA’s assessment that the current situation will likely persist until at least the second quarter of 2025. This step is another layer in the series of challenges facing Israel’s aviation industry in these times.
