Minister of Tourism Avraham Hirchson announced Monday afternoon that he would grant Israir second designated carrier status on the New York-Tel Aviv route for a period of two years, thereby breaking El Al's monopoly on the profitable line. Until now, Israir has only flown charter flights between the two cities.function initServerVars() { _headup.clientHost = 'http://newstopics.jpost.com'; _headup.termsFromServer = 0; _headup.annotatedTerms = 0; _headup.widgetMode = 'snippet'; _headup.snippetButtonStyle = 'banner'; _headup.blackListedUrl = false; } <!-- Terms Count: 0 TTL: 4 Terms From Server: DateTime: 6/12/2011 6:33:08 AM -->