The Jewish Agency signed an agreement Wednesday with the Latvian airline Latpas to carry immigrants from the Baltic states directly to Israel.
Latpas has been running charter flights from Riga to Tel Aviv since March but was limited to regular passengers. Now it will reserve seats for immigrants booked by the Jewish Agency.
Olim from the newly independent Baltic republics have been traveling to Israel via Warsaw. Latpas will serve a Jewish population of about 38,000 — 25,000 in Latvia and the rest in Lithuania and Estonia.
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