Transportation Minister Miri Regev warned on Sunday that unless many of the US aircraft parked at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport are relocated immediately, some 2.4 million plane tickets scheduled for the peak summer months and holiday season could be canceled.

In an urgent letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Regev cautioned about a “direct economic loss of billions of shekels to airlines, the tourism industry, and the economy as a whole.”

The current situation will “severely damage Israel’s credibility as an aviation destination and may put off airlines that have only recently returned to flying to Israel following the April ceasefire [with Iran],” she wrote in the letter.

“Mass flight cancellations for summer vacations and holidays at a time when the Israeli public needs calm and normalcy more than ever will damage national morale and civic resilience,” Regev said. “Flight cancellations will be another blow to the public, and responsibility for this will be rightly attributed to the government’s inability to provide a solution to a solvable problem.”

A fleet of about 72 US refuelers and cargo planes is parked at Ben Gurion Airport, according to Regev. In addition, another fleet of 26 American aircraft is stationed at the Ramon airport in southern Israel.

The significant presence of US military aircraft occupying areas at Ben Gurion has been delaying a full return to normal commercial flight operations at Israel’s main........

© The Times of Israel