For several years the government of Israel has been heavily subsidizing non-stop flights to Eilat. Due to the corona pandemic and the associated entry restrictions, tourists were not able to spend their holidays on the Red Sea. Accordingly, the flight offer was almost exclusively limited to domestic flights to Tel Aviv.
From September 2021, the still young Eilat-Ramon Airport, which has replaced the inner-city Hozman Airport and the civil shared use of Ovda, is to become a popular landing place for airlines and their passengers again. The Israel Ministry of Tourism announced that non-stop flights to / from Eilat will be subsidized again.
The current funding period starts on September 21, 2021 and is initially limited to the end of May 2022. Before the corona pandemic, Israel paid a grant of up to 80 euros per arriving passenger. For this reason, low-cost airlines such as Wizz Air and Ryanair were able to offer the connections particularly cheaply, sometimes in the single-digit euro range, because the simple calculation was: the more tourists flown in to Eilat, the more money there was. Israel did not provide any details on which source markets it is focusing on.
With regard to the aviation agreements concluded with some countries from the Arab region, it should be noted that only connections to Tel Aviv are limited. Holiday flights to / from Eilat are not subject to any notable restrictions, so that it can be expected that, for example, some holiday flights to Eilat from the Emirates could be launched.