DL234 pushed back from JFK Terminal 4 on Sunday afternoon and landed at Ben Gurion on Monday morning. An Airbus A330-900neo, 281 seats, ten and three quarter hours eastbound.

It is an entirely ordinary flight, and it had not operated since 28 February.

That was the day the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran. Delta suspended the route the same day, then extended the suspension four times. Six months and one week later, it is back.

Four Postponements

The pattern is worth laying out, because it shows how airlines actually make these decisions — in increments, and late.

Delta pulled the route on 28 February. On 13 March it extended the pause to 31 May. On 28 March it pushed the restart to 5 September, and simultaneously suspended Atlanta–Tel Aviv and postponed the planned Boston service indefinitely. The announcement that the route would actually return came on 26 August, eleven days before the first departure.

Delta’s own statement was unattributed and unsurprising.

This is also not the first time. Delta suspended Tel Aviv after the Hamas attack in October 2023, resumed on 20 May 2025 after what it called an extensive security risk assessment, paused again on 13 June 2025 for the Israel–Iran war, resumed on 1 September 2025, and even ran the route twice daily through the peak winter period. Then February happened.

What Happens When the Foreign Airlines Leave

The most interesting part of this story is not Delta. It is the hole Delta left.

Ben Gurion handled 19.16 million passengers in 2025 — about 77 per cent of its 2019 figure, and a 33 per cent year-on-year recovery on international traffic. Then the war restarted. March 2026 traffic was 203,256 passengers, down 85.1 per cent. April was 501,224, down 74 per cent. The airport fully reopened on 9 April, but reopening an airport and getting airlines to use it are different problems.

Into that vacuum went El Al. Its share of international passengers at Ben Gurion had been around 20 per cent before the wars and 37.4 per cent in 2025. In April 2026 it peaked at 68.15 per cent.

Fares behaved exactly as you would expect. In August, Tel Aviv to New York on Israeli carriers was going for more than $2,000, against under $1,200 six months earlier. Delta’s September round-trips opened around $2,680 and were down near $1,550 by late October.

In February the Competition Authority moved to fine El Al roughly 121 million shekels — about $39 million — for excessive and unfair pricing on at least 38 of 53 routes during the October 2023 to May 2024 period. That is the shape of the problem: when foreign carriers go, the national carrier is the only lifeline and also the only price-setter.

The Return Is Not Complete

Delta is not alone. United resumes Newark–Tel Aviv twice daily with 787s from 8 September, and adds San Francisco three times a week from March 2027. American Airlines is not expected back before 27 March 2027.

European carriers went back sooner. Lufthansa, SWISS, ITA, Austrian, Air France, Wizz Air, Etihad and flydubai are all operating alongside El Al, Arkia, Israir and Air Haifa. British Airways, Iberia, Air Canada, Ryanair and easyJet are still out.

And Ben Gurion itself is not back to normal. In late May its director general described the airport as operating at a third of its capacity and at the limit of what it could do.

By July the numbers had improved sharply — 2.36 million passengers and 15,940 flight movements — and El Al’s share had fallen back to 35.58 per cent as competition returned. That last figure is the one to watch. It is the clearest single measure of whether Israeli aviation is normalising, and it moves only when foreign airlines actually fly.

One A330neo on a Sunday afternoon is not a recovery. But it is a data point, and after six months there had not been many.

A trip report from the last Delta A330-900neo service into Tel Aviv before the February suspension.

Sources: Delta News Hub, The Times of Israel, Israel Airports Authority, Reuters, AirlineGeeks, Air Data News, Upgraded Points.