“We are looking at offers to purchase narrow-body aircraft from the two major aircraft manufacturers, Airbus and Boeing,” revealed El Al CEO Dina Ben Tal Gennasia at the Growth Frontiers international economic conference in Tel Aviv. The conference was organized by Airlines Economics, which has been holding similar conferences all over the world for years.
The conference opened with a conversation between Dina Ben Tal Gennasia, CEO of El Al, and John Fluger, President and CEO of ALC, a leading company in the aircraft leasing field. They discussed the recovery in the industry in the period after the epidemic that shook the market, with a focus on the high demand for flights all over the world and the airlines’ demand for new planes.
The CEO of El Al, Dina Ben Tal Gennasia said: “Beyond the demand we are experiencing, the customers appreciate more the value proposition that goes beyond the flight price, they appreciate the service and today buy more seats in the premium and business classes.”
The high demand of passengers leads to the demand of airlines to purchase new planes. According to Ben Tal Gnansia: “El Al’s business plan for the next five years includes increasing the fleet of aircraft from 45 to 60, among other things by increasing the fleet of narrow-body aircraft from 24 to 30.” We hope to receive in time the Dreamliners that will increase the fleet, we are in the midst of the process of changing the configuration to the 777s so that they will provide a Dreamliner flight experience, which will increase our possibility to expand the route network. We are seriously looking at opening the line to Melbourne, which is possible thanks to permission to fly in the skies of Oman and Saudi Arabia. El Al is examining in depth two offers, from Boeing and Airbus, to increase the fleet. In the past, El Al operated an old fleet that included 767 and 747 aircraft that were 20 years old, today our aircraft fleet has an average age of about 10 years and it is important for us to continue the process of rejuvenating the fleet.’
At the conference, John Pfluger referred to the importance of the age of the aircraft fleet in terms of the environment and operational efficiency when Airbus and Boeing have already admitted that supply challenges still affect the market. Fluger, a pilot himself, had difficulty addressing the question of when we will get to see planes that operate without a pilot “Not in the next decade, I find it hard to believe that passengers will want to get on a plane that does not have pilots, when this process starts, I believe it will start with the cargo planes.”
Photo: Dovrat El Al
