Article from BTNews 4 FEBRUARY 2019
First passengers for new Eilat Ramon Airport
Israel’s first new purpose-built gateway, Ramon International Airport (IATA code ETM / ICAO code LLER), comes into official use today, Monday 4 February, with the arrival of the inugural commercial operation following the official opening last month (BTN 14 January).
Arkia Airlines and Israir Airlines are operating afternoon and evening domestic services from Sde Dov and Ben Gurion airports today, next Monday and on 18 February as Ramon is phased into service. International flights begin later this year.
The new Ramon Airport is set to replace the two existing facilities in Eilat – Eilat City and Ovda – to give Israel a new international gateway to the south and the Red Sea. It is expected to handle up to 2m passengers a year initially with expansion allowing capacity of up to 4.2m by 2030.
All domestic flights to the old Eilat City Airport from Tel Aviv and Haifa are moving gradually to Ramon while the airport will also begin handling flights from Europe which currently land in Ovda, including those of Ryanair, WizzAir, easyJet, Transavia, SAS, Finnair, Edelweiss and Ural Airlines.
The new airport has a 3,600m runway and apron parking space for nine large and wide-body aircraft such as those used by European low-cost airlines plus four turboprops as used on domestic flights from Tel Aviv and Haifa to Eilat.
www.iaa.gov.il/en-US/airports/Ramon
OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)
All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum