ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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Tel Aviv Air (stylized TLV-Air) was a German airline based at Hamburg Airport, dissolved three months after its start of activity. Founded in July 2021 in order to offer direct flights between the city of Hamburg and Tel Aviv, Israel, the airline, considered the smallest one in the world, had only one Airbus A320, covering the Hamburgo- Tel Aviv route four times a week (two one-way and two-way flights back).

History
Despite being the second largest city in Germany, Hamburg had only recently had a direct air connection to Israel's international airport. In the 1970s there was an airline operating this route, but it was soon stopped.

Between 2019 and 2020, the German low-cost airline covered this route, declaring after its bankruptcy in 2020 that it had been one of its profitable routes. Germania was also the only airline offering direct flights between Tel Aviv and Stuttgart, and on the eve of its cessation it planned a route between Núremberg and the Israeli city. Following its cessation, a demand for the continuity of direct flights between the Hanseatic city and Israel was detected.

To this end, the Tel Aviv Air airline was founded, the result of the collaboration between former managers of the late Germania and a travel agency in Hamburg. His first flight, leaving the German city, was originally scheduled for December 16, 2021, although it finally took place on March 6, 2022.

Tel Aviv Air's first aircraft, a 189-seat Boeing 737-800, was operated by the Polish airline Enter Air, offering a Premium Economy class with 14 seats (with empty intermediate seats) and a standard configuration for the rest of the seats. The collaboration contract with Enter Air, however, expired only three weeks after the new line was released. Instead, it was chosen to hire the services of the Cypriot Tu Airways, charting an Airbus 320 - its last device - offering 180 seats, with an executive class replacing the previous Premium Economy.

Insolvency and cessation
In early May 2022, Tel Aviv Air announced that its flights were suspended for technical reasons, although it later confirmed on its website that it had declared itself in insolvency on 12 of the month. The following day, it was published that Tel Aviv Air declared itself definitely insolvent and would cease its operations. In a later analysis, its founders recognized that both the effects of the COVID- 19 pandemic and the outcome of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that year (being a large part of the Jewish community of Hamburg - the main users of this route - of Russian and Ukrainian origin) precipitated the premature end of the airline.

References

Missing airlines from Germany
Airlines founded in 2021
Airlines missing in 2022
Low-cost airlines