El Al Off Course?

[old,not bold]

I was wandering about in Flightradar24 just now, and came across the El Al service from Mumbai to Tel Aviv flying steadily South West from Mumbai, heading for the Horn of Africa.

I'm just curious; does anyone know why? Or is it a false display?

[SpringHeeledJack]

I'd wager that to pair these two cities and to take into account countries that would not allow overflights of El AL it makes sense to fly to the Horn of Africa and the hang a right up the Red Sea (in International airspce) to arrive in Israeli territory by Eilat.

Either that or they're trying to keep the hours up for the pilots ;-)

[renfrew]

It is quite amazing to now see flights from Dubai to Tel Aviv crossing Saudi Arabia.

[eastern wiseguy]

It is correct. What is more, it will fly almost directly up the "middle" of the Red Sea (Northbound or Southbound) on its way to/from LLBG. This may change if overflight rights are granted.

[Dorf]

On Flightaware - not sure about FR24 - you can look at the same flight on previous days and see the routing.

[TEEEJ]

Playback at following link.

10th

https://www.radarbox.com/data/flights/LY72/1518312884

11th

https://www.radarbox.com/data/flights/LY72/1503612850

[KelvinD]

Reminds me of my time in Jeddah in the late 70s. El Al used to fly to Nairobi 2 or 3 times a week and they would go right down the middle of the Red Sea. More than once I was in the room when they called Jeddah ro report they had entered the FIR and it was a picture to watch the local controllers turn their backs to their screens and ignore the calls!

[dixi188]

Also in the '70s.
I was in working in Muscat and one morning there was an ELAL 747 parked on the civil ramp with lots of military around it.
I think they had a smoke event and diverted to the nearest available airport. It departed after about 4 hours so I guess the problem went away.

[kcockayne]

Unless things have changed, this is the normal sort of route taken by ELY a/c from India, SE Asia etc. to Israel. It is required to avoid entering Arab airspace & has been happening for a very long time. The same is true of other routes out of Israel to other destinations which would otherwise enter Arab airspace. It may be, with a certain thaw in diplomatic relations with some Arab countries, that ELY are now able to fly more direct routings. I don’t know.

[mutt]

Unless things have changed,

things have changed, flights to/from TLV from the Middle East are permitted in Saudi Airspace. Look at Skyscanner.com and you will see that ELAL and FLY DUBAI have the same flight times TLV-DXB. Air India was the first airline permitted to fly over Saudi into TLV, that happened about a year ago, now its open.

[mutt]

Originally Posted by KelvinD

Reminds me of my time in Jeddah in the late 70s. El Al used to fly to Nairobi 2 or 3 times a week and they would go right down the middle of the Red Sea. More than once I was in the room when they called Jeddah ro report they had entered the FIR and it was a picture to watch the local controllers turn their backs to their screens and ignore the calls!

These days you call Saudi ATC and you get a female controller, not to mention the female immigration, customs, airline personnel etc etc etc, very different to the 70’s. You should visit again