Ben Gurion Widens Access as Red Sea Risk and a Draft Crackdown Tighten Around It

Ben Gurion is heading into its busiest holiday stretch on record: 55 airlines are set to operate this fall versus 45 a year ago, with passenger traffic projected at 2.5 million against 1.84 million last year. Wizz Air is relaunching five routes and adding 45 weekly frequencies; Delta and United have resumed US service, ending the El Al/Israir duopoly that held through the war years; Transavia has expanded French capacity; and Israir moved up its own New York launch to compete head-on. For advisors, that's real fare competition and materially more inventory to work with on holiday-period bookings into Israel. The catch: the airport is absorbing this surge on top of a summer of baggage-handling and staffing strain, with added pressure from US military refueling traffic through the field. Flag realistic delay and baggage-transfer buffers for clients flying peak dates this month rather than assuming the extra capacity means a smoother airport experience.

• Wizz Air: 5 routes relaunched, 45 weekly frequencies added
• Delta and United resume US-Israel service alongside El Al/Israir
• Israir moved up its New York launch to compete
• 2.5M passengers projected this fall vs. 1.84M last year

Regional risk jumped this week on two fronts. Houthi forces claim a large-scale missile and drone strike on a Saudi air base and, separately, have seized additional Red Sea islands near Bab al-Mandeb, tightening their hold on a shipping lane already disrupted by an earlier strike on a major Saudi pipeline. A planned Oman-hosted meeting between Gulf states and Iran on Strait of Hormuz shipping safety was postponed, and Washington has signaled it will not intervene militarily to defend Saudi Arabia from further strikes. None of this touches Ben Gurion operations directly today, but it raises the risk calculus for any itinerary pairing Israel with a Gulf stopover or a Gulf-based carrier connection, and it's the kind of escalation that tends to show up next in war-risk premiums and fuel surcharges. Advisors with clients transiting Gulf hubs this month should watch for carrier routing changes over the coming days rather than wait for an advisory update.

The annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to Uman, which routes tens of thousands of Israelis through Ben Gurion every year, is hitting friction this season. Intensified IDF enforcement against ultra-Orthodox draft evaders has prompted senior rabbis to warn at-risk travelers to avoid the airport entirely during the holiday window — a real threat of last-minute cancellations and no-shows on this recurring group-travel segment. Separately, the body of a British Jewish pilgrim, showing signs of violence, was found in a forest near Uman during the holiday, underscoring the duty-of-care exposure that already attends this pilgrimage's remote lodging and ground-transport arrangements. Advisors handling Uman charter or group bookings this month should expect added departure screening at Ben Gurion and possible late itinerary changes tied to the draft-evasion enforcement, separate from the ongoing criminal investigation into the pilgrim's death.