ITA Airways Cuts Rome–Tel Aviv Flights Through November

ITA Airways is reducing its direct Rome–Tel Aviv schedule from three daily flights to two through the end of November. The reduction was reported on Friday, November 6, and concerns flights AZ812 and AZ815. The Italian carrier will continue serving the route rather than suspend all of its Israel flights. Passengers booked on the canceled services will be transferred to the airline’s other two flights on the route. The temporary cuts reverse part of a recent expansion: ITA had increased its schedule to three flights a day about two weeks earlier. The reported cancellation period runs through the end of November; the account does not set out a separate timetable for restoring the additional service. ITA is partly owned by Lufthansa Group. Separately, Lufthansa announced on Thursday evening that its crews would not stay overnight in Israel through November 30. That arrangement also covers SWISS, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines. Three morning flights are using crew-change stops in Athens or Larnaca, while the group’s other services were expected to operate normally. The ITA frequency reduction and the Lufthansa crew arrangements are different operational measures. Lufthansa did not explicitly identify Iran as the reason for its overnight-stay policy.