Arkia announced Wednesday that its repatriation flights from Dubai to Israel have been canceled, creating a new crisis in efforts to bring home Israelis stranded in the United Arab Emirates following the attempted attack on a flydubai flight.
All flights have been canceled, including those scheduled for Thursday, the final day on which the repatriation flights were due to operate.
Arkia said: “Authorization to operate the flights was valid through Tuesday, but in the evening the authorities decided to revoke the permits allowing Israeli airlines to operate flights from Dubai.
“Since then, Arkia has been working with all relevant parties and has done everything possible to obtain the permits again and operate the flights. Unfortunately, our efforts have so far been unsuccessful, so we have been forced to cancel the flights.”
The airline said passengers would receive a full refund for their tickets. "In addition, passengers who can make their own way to a destination served by Arkia will receive a 10% discount on a flight from there to Israel,” it added.
Following the incident, flydubai suspended its flights to and from Israel pending completion of the investigation, leaving hundreds of Israelis in the United Arab Emirates without their planned flights home. Emirates, flydubai’s sister airline, also immediately suspended until further notice its codeshare agreement with flydubai on routes to and from Israel. The airline also said that, for now, passengers whose final destination is Tel Aviv will not be allowed to board Emirates flights to Dubai to connect to flights to Israel.
Al-Hammami. Right: After he was subdued
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is continuing to investigate the security incident aboard the flight, in parallel with the criminal investigation being conducted by the United Arab Emirates, in which the Shin Bet is also participating.
Ofer Vaknin, director of the Israel's Aircraft Safety Investigation Authority, told Reuters that Israel had offered to participate in any safety investigation led by Saudi Arabia but had not yet been invited to take part.
“We are still waiting for a notification from Saudi Arabia to invite us to take a part in the investigation,” he said.
The U.S. news network NewsNation reported that New Zealand is also conducting an investigation. Al-Hammami, the terrorist pilot, spent six months there for flight training between November 2018 and May 2019.
Britain’s Telegraph reported that Al-Hammami, who intended to crash the flight with its Israeli passengers at Ben-Gurion Airport, studied at L3 Airline Academy, one of Britain’s largest flight schools, in a training program that apparently connected him with a flight school in Hamilton, New Zealand.
New Zealand Police told the news network that Al-Hammami spent a total of 175 days in the country, where he completed part of his flight training.
The Telegraph noted that Al-Hammami wrote on social media that he was most devout in his religious practice during his student years, which he described as his “golden years.”