ByZEV STUB
Suffocating under the weight of mandatory quarantines for many travelers, Israel’s airlines have asked the Health Ministry to replace the quarantines with a third corona test. 

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Roni Numa, the country’s corona airport commissioner, is in favor of this proposal and open to other possibilities, his spokesman said Sunday. He said he believed there is a reasonable chance the government would accept this compromise in a meeting with the Health Ministry late Sunday.

Starting Wednesday, travelers from the US, France, Italy, Germany, Greece and about 20 other countries will be required to isolate for a minimum of seven days, even if they are fully vaccinated or recovered, after the government put those countries under a severe travel warning. That ruling caused “mass hysteria” among travelers, leading many to cancel or defer their flight plans, travel agents said.
Israel’s pandemic travel regulations are among the strictest in the world, and many, including top health professionals, have charged that there is no scientific justification to require so many travelers to isolate themselves after flights. Other countries, like Great Britain, have been removing quarantine requirements in recent days for fully vaccinated travelers.

August is a popular vacation time, and many people left for their trips abroad before the new travel restrictions were announced. The school year begins September 1 and Rosh Hashanah starts the night of September 6, so the prospect of being confined to a seven-day quarantine is particularly frustrating for many at this time of year.

A number of travelers paid hundreds of dollars extra to move their flight forward to land before the restrictions go into effect on Wednesday, according to Ziontours Jerusalem CEO Mark Feldman.

Currently, travelers are required to take tests within 72 hours before boarding a flight to Israel, and then again in the airport upon arrival, and everyone from red or orange countries must quarantine for seven days, even if they are fully vaccinated. The arrangement proposed by the airlines would add a third COVID test on the fifth day, with the option to get out of isolation early if that is negative, according to Numa's spokesman.

Israel’s airlines are suffering tremendously during the pandemic. El Al lost $531 million in 2020 and saw revenues drop more than 70% due to canceled flights.

The government was forced to spend nearly NIS 750m. to bail out El Al and Israir from the damage of months of canceled flights and airport closures. As part of that plan, El Al was supposed to raise another $105 million in a share-offering by July, but it was postponed  “in light of changes in the business environment and the prevalence of the COVID-19 Delta variant.”

Further closures or cancellations will dig those holes even deeper, and airline company heads have warned that the country’s aviation industry is in danger of “collapse.”