History
Israir Airlines was established in 1989 as Knafei HaEmek (Valley Wings) before changing its name to Israir Airlines in 1996. It is now wholly owned by the Ganden Group. The airline began with domestic services from Eilat Airport, Ben Gurion International Airport, Sde Dov Airport, and Haifa Airport in the north of the country. It expanded its operations to begin international charter flights in 1999, building up a route network that now covers much of Europe, as well as regularly flying to other destinations in Asia, Africa, and North America.
The airline expanded operations across the Atlantic when regular charter service to New York City's Kennedy International Airport was started in June 2004. Permission was granted to the airline to convert this to regular scheduled service by the Israeli government and the FAA on May 1, 2006. This service was discontinued in September 2008, due to escalating fuel prices and the expectation of a drop in the number of passengers due to the weakness of the dollar at the time.
In early 2007, the airline announced plans to introduce Sky-Torah scrolls on each of its aircraft. These were effectively Torah scrolls which would be carried on board its flight for Jewish passengers to use for prayer. This is a first for any Israeli airline and was seen by many as a means to attract many Haredi passengers to the airline at a time when they were showing great dissatisfaction with arch-rival, El Al, following their flying of aircraft on the Shabbat. Later on in 2007, Israir sparked controversy once again when a passenger announced he was filing a lawsuit against the airline for misadvertising the legroom they offered on their aircraft.
In early 2008, when restrictions were lifted on Israeli airlines' destinations, Israir applied for designated carrier status on routes from Israel to London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Amsterdam, Rome, Budapest, Las Vegas, and Miami - some of which are destinations currently served by the airline as charter routes.
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