The first charter flight from the West Coast to Israel will depart from Los Angeles on May 17, inaugurating one flight every two weeks thereafter through November, it was announced here.
Addressing a press conference, Amram Zur, general manager of Worldwide Travel Specialists, and Pano Anastasato, president of Wholesale Tours International, predicted that the program will result in 3500 additional tourists to Israel during the 1976 pilgrimage year. The ban on charter flights was lifted by the Israel government last month, but the lifting of the ban is restricted to flights from the West Coast.
According to Zur, the first two charter flights from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv are already full. The “historic first charter flight” is priced at $946 round trip and is in the form of a 16-day package, including accommodations at five-star hotels in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, four-star hotels in Tiberias and Netanya, daily breakfast, transfers between hotels and airport and sightseeing. These flights will be carried by Trans International Airlines giant DC-8 jets.
Zur said that the price of the flight is about $300 less than similar packages on the market. Both Anastasato, who is said to have brought through his company more than 250,000 tourists from the U.S. to Israel in the last 13 years, and Zur, the former commissioner for tourism in the U.S. for Israel’s Ministry of Tourism, said that the lifting of the charter ban by the Israeli government is “one step forward toward increasing tourism from this country.” Anastasato also said that the new program will increase the number of non-Jewish tourists to the Holy Land on pilgrimage tours.
As to the possibility of charter flights to Israel from the East Coast, Anastasato said: “I am convinced, as pressure mounts, that other parts of the world will open for charter flights to Israel.” A cable, announcing the inauguration of the first charter flight from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv, was sent to Israel’s Minister of Tourism, Moshe Kol.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
