In the moments after Iran fired a barrage of hundreds of missiles at Israel on Saturday night, Rabbi Marc Israel sat in his rented apartment in Jerusalem, panicking. His parents were about to board a plane at Ben Gurion Airport. Would it be safe for them? 

Their plane back to the United States departed just after midnight, one of the last planes to leave Tel Aviv before Israeli airspace was closed to allow Israel and its allies to take down the Iranian missiles. But while Ben Gurion Airport has since reopened, the sole U.S. carrier that had been operating in Israel — United Airlines — has canceled all flights until further notice. Its decision has upended travel plans for thousands of people who had flights booked to Israel ahead of Passover next week. 

Israel, a rabbi at a Conservative synagogue in Maryland who is on a month-long sabbatical volunteering in Israel, was lucky; his parents were able to leave Israel, and his in-laws, who were coming to Israel for Passover, arrived in the country just 24 hours after they were scheduled to. But they had been booked on Lufthansa, which shut down operations briefly but has since resumed service. 

“People reached out to us to say, ‘Hey, do you know of any flights?’ Or, ‘How do we get there? How do we come back?’” said Doni Schwartz, co-founder of PassoverListings.com, a platform that helps people book travel for Passover, which begins on Monday night.

It’s a familiar quandary for anyone who has traveled, or attempted to travel, from the U.S. to Israel or vice versa since the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7. For months afterward, the only airline flying direct flights between North America and Israel was El Al, Israel’s national carrier. Flights were empty for weeks, and prices skyrocketed. Airlines cited safety concerns and limits of their insurance policies as reasons for keeping service to Israel suspended. 

Several European airlines began servicing Israel in January and February, and United only resumed limited service last month — the sole American airline to do so. Delta Airlines has announced plans to resume flights from New York’s JFK Airport to Tel Aviv in June, which a spokesperson said is still the plan, though the airline reserves the right to change its mind depending on current events. The British budget airline EasyJet this week canceled all flights to Israel until October.

A United spokesperson told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that flights into Tel Aviv and Amman, Jordan, were canceled that day, but declined to share future plans. “We continue to closely monitor the situation and will make decisions on upcoming flights with a focus on the safety of our customers and crews,” a United spokesperson said. 

A search on United’s website doesn’t show any scheduled direct flights from Newark, N.J., until Monday afternoon. That flight arrives in Israel on Tuesday morning — more than 12 hours after Passover begins, meaning anyone on board who celebrates would miss the Monday night Seder. A Thursday direct one-way flight from JFK to Tel Aviv on El Al cost $5,500 as of Wednesday morning. (eJewishPhilanthropy reporter Haley Cohen, whose United flight was canceled, said the airline did not help rebook her to Israel on another carrier.) 

“It’s been a very difficult situation for people who want to get in or get out [of Israel], just based on the amount of supply, but from what we’re hearing, people are changing their plans,” said Schwartz.

Israel’s tourism industry has been in a major slump since the Hamas attacks in October. The country’s tourism minister recently traveled to a Christian conference in Tennessee to encourage American Christians to visit Israel. 

Passover is one of the most popular times to visit Israel. Jewish day schools around the world are closed for the week, and many hotels in Israel offer kosher-for-Passover food — an appealing option for anyone who doesn’t want to clean and prepare their own homes, or cook large celebratory meals for a week. The holiday will likely bring the largest number of tourists to Israel since October. But those who have come to Israel in recent weeks and months are reconsidering their travel options, given the unreliability of non-Israeli carriers.

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told JI that he spoke to Americans and Israelis in recent months who switched from United to El Al as their carrier of choice over the cancellations. “Obviously, all those different executives are going to make their own decisions on it, but the passengers will as well,” Lankford said.

“When I was in Israel, it was interesting to me to talk to some folks that are multi-year, whatever level, platinum United folks or others that are now flying El Al,” Lankford continued. “They are saying that even when they [the airlines] were flying again, they [the customers] were furious that they stopped flying, and so they’ve chosen to be able to fly El Al.”

Still, lawmakers largely didn’t see a role for congressional action to push for restarting flight routes to Israel.

“There may well be [a way], but I doubt we’re gonna get cooperation,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said. “Passing a bill would be the longest way home, it would be easier to get the cooperation of the Biden administration and implement some sort of executive order. But I don’t think that is likely to happen.”

In 2014, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, the Federal Aviation Administration banned U.S. flights into and out of Israel for 36 hours after a rocket fired by Hamas in the Gaza Strip landed one mile from Ben Gurion Airport. The move was strongly criticized by the Israeli government before it was reversed. Now, though, the FAA has not put a ban in place — it’s the airlines that have decided on their own not to fly into Israel. (An FAA spokesperson declined to comment.)   

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said that while he wasn’t sure if the FAA could address insurance or security risks involved in conducting those flights, “You’d hate to see the ability to travel back and forth stymied or reduced in any way.”

“The real threat would be if they [Iran] launched another large attack salvo at an airfield that was not a military airfield, let’s say it was Tel Aviv, at the airport. You can hit an airplane on the ground,” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former Navy pilot, said of the risks U.S. airlines have to consider when sending their planes into Israel.

“I think private companies and also the U.S. government have to be considering the safety of our population. And you have Americans that are flying to Tel Aviv. I think it’s a concern and it sounds like these two airlines think it’s a concern as well,” Kelly said of United and Delta. “I think it’s valid, but I also think that Israel along with our help and our allies’ help demonstrated how inept the Iranians are, so I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told JI that he would “do anything within reason to give them [U.S. airlines] the incentives to fly to Israel,” calling Iran’s strike on Israel over the weekend “another sign of” Tehran’s efforts to “isolate” the Jewish state.

Aside from European airlines, some Gulf carriers — most notably Emirates — continue to fly to Tel Aviv.