The British Overseas Airways Corporation will resume use of Lod (Lydda) Airport in Israel for flights between London and the Far East, it was learned today. The airline cancelled two flights last May when Pakistan, in support of the Arab anti-Israel boycott, refused overflight rights to planes which had landed at Lod unless they made an intermediate stop.
BOAC has now reinstated the two flights it cancelled at that time and has added another using Lod. With the two London-Lod flights which were not interrupted, the British airline will now have five flights weekly using Lod Airport.
Dr. Joachim Prinz of Newark, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, said he was “deeply gratified” to receive the letter from BOAC announcing the expansion of its service to Israel. In behalf of the Conference, Dr. Prinz had protested the original BOAC action charging that it had “bowed to Arab boycott pressure” in cancelling its flights to the Far East via Lod Airport.
The BOAC letter to Dr. Prinz noted that, during 1967-68, the airline will have five flights weekly stopping at Lod instead of four. Two will be direct between London and Tel Aviv and one will go beyond Tel Aviv to Sydney, Australia. Another flight will stop in Israel en route to Delhi, India; and a fifth will fly via Tel Aviv to Tokyo, Japan.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
