The decision to schedule a second daily Boeing 777–300 flight comes just over a month after Emirates' first-ever passenger flight to Tel Aviv.
< p>Interestingly, the return flight from Tel Aviv to Dubai will operate in the morning, opening up additional connectivity options to a variety of destinations, including Auckland, Brisbane, Perth, Australia, as well as Bali, Seoul and Singapore.
It is noteworthy that the official diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE were only formalized in September 2020.
A few weeks later, the countries signed an air service agreement, and on December 1, 2020, direct flights began with the Israeli low-cost airline Israir, which performed the first flight from Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport to Dubai International Airport.
The Dubai government initially showed taking a cautious approach to a new market by launching direct flights with flydubai rather than Emirates. Several attempts to bring Emirates to market had to be postponed due to pandemic restrictions, and it was not until June 23 that the airline finally began flying to Israel.
Despite the fact that there is a high demand for this route in the Emirates, serious problems have arisen between Israeli and Emirati officials. In the early days, Israelis complained about problems obtaining visas upon arrival in Dubai, and earlier this year, the Israeli counterintelligence and state security service Shin Bet threatened to ban airlines from flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv.
The dispute centered on demands Shin Bet to allow its employees to work outside of Dubai airport in the same way as it is allowed in many other countries. The local authorities in Dubai objected to the presence of Israeli security guards on the DXB site, while there were no such concerns in neighboring Abu Dhabi.
The Israelis even considered moving all Israeli airline flights from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and banning flights of Emirati airlines, but the parties managed to reach an agreement before any flights were canceled.