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I- Historical Background
(With ref. to The Palestinian
Airlines History Pages: By Wassim Chemaitelli)
Before its partition and the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948,
Palestine, under British mandate, with both its Arab and Jewish
populations had the most advanced economy, possibly the most
educated population, and the highest potential for development
in the Middle East. Airports in Palestine, including Gaza and
Lydda were important stops in the prestigious network of
Imperial Airways. Palestine Airways, founded in July 1937 by
Pinhas Rutenberg, was second only to Egypt's Misrair as the
oldest airline in the region and was based in Haifa. It started
its operations with flights between Haifa and Lydda using 2
Shorts S.16 Scion 2 planes. As tensions between the Arab and
Jewish communities increased in the late thirties, the airline's
base was transferred to a new airfield in Tel-Aviv (the airstrip
is currently known as Sde Dov Airport) in October 1938. The
fleet was increased by a Short S.22 Scion and a De Havilland
DH-89 Rapide in 1938. The Rapide performed a twice daily
rotation between Tel-Aviv and Haifa, a route expanded to Beirut
a few weeks later. Palestine Airways ceased its operations in
August 1940 and its aircraft were taken-over by the Royal Air
Force during the second world war. Palestine Airways' shares
were held by Jewish entrepreneurs, its Hebrew title was "Netivei
Avir Eretz Yisrael" (Air Lines of the Land of Israel) while its
title in Arabic reads "Turuq Al Jawwiya Bi Filistin" (The
Airline Company in Palestine), a discrepancy that was lost in
the official translation to English. |
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Imperial Airways' Hanno (G-AAUD), a Handley
Page HP42 seen near Samakh by the lake of Tiberias in Galilee in
1931. The airline had just established a junction there between
the Kent seaplanes (which landed on the lake, to the
astonishment of the locals) arriving from Greece and the HP42
service to India via Iraq and Persia. Copyright Unknown. |
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Lydda Airport, under construction in 1935.
The airport was open for regular traffic in 1936. Lydda, the
town close to the airport was inhabited by Palestinian Arabs
before 1948. Following the creation of the state of Israel, the
airport was taken over by the Israeli authorities, and renamed
Lod Airport. It is currently the site of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion
International Airport. Copyright unknown. |
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Misrair's De Havilland Dragon Rapide, seen in
Lydda. Photo: A Himmelreich. Undated. |
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Left: Palestine Airways
advertisement. Right: Luggage label, Palestine Airways, 1937,
Daniel Kusrow's collection@Timetableimages.com. |
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The partition of Palestine and the wars that
followed changed the region's face forever. The state of Israel,
created on the largest area of Palestine, was an intended
homeland for Jews. Strengthened by an efficient and devoted
administration, enjoying strong support from the West and
enriched by the influx of immigrants from all over the world it
was rapidly able to evolve towards a modern economy. While it
cultivated its strong ties and affinities with Europe and the
Americas at all levels, this part of Palestine lost its natural
share of the regional market as the result of its continued
disputes with the Arab world. The remaining territories in
Palestine fell under the administration of neighboring Arab
countries which retarded economies by pre-1948 Palestine
standards had little to offer.While having to cope with a
massive influx of Arab refugees, these territories did not even
enjoy geographical continuity. To the southwest, a narrow and
impoverished semi-desertic enclave on the eastern edge of Sinai,
the Gaza strip, became administered by the ailing Egyptian
monarchy. To the northeast, the landlocked territories that came
to be known as the West Bank (in reference to the Jordan river),
including the old city of Jerusalem, were administered by the
kingdom of Transjordan (known thereafter as the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan). |
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Air Jordan (Left, Postcard from Telco-Sport,Beirut,
late fifties) and its successor Jordan Airways (right, Viscount
seen in Beirut) provided frequent regional services out of
Jerusalem's Kolundia Airport during the fifties and early
sixties. |
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Left: Little is known about Arab Airways, an
airline based in Jerusalem and which advertisments echoed the
claims of the Jordanian administration over the West Bank.
Timetable from Bjorn Larsson's collection @ Timetable Images
Website. After the Arab debacle of the Six Days War, the West
Bank fell under Israeli occupation. Jerusalem's Kolundia Airport
(JRS) has since been known to the Israelis at Atarot Airport,
and the featured postal cover commemorates the first flight
operated to JRS by Arkia, the Israeli domestic airline. |
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During the fifties and sixties, there were no
air services to Gaza while flights to the West Bank were
operated through Jerusalem's Kolundia Airport (JRS). Regional
flights were flown to JRS by several Arab airlines, most of the
traffic being carried by those registered in Jordan (Arab
Airways, Air Jordan, Jordan Airways, Alia). The Six Days war in
1967 and the occupation of the territories by the Israeli army
ended these flights. Kolundia airport was taken over by the
occupation and is currently known to the Israelis as Atarot
Airport. Since 1967, the airport has mostly been used for short
haul flights servicing the needs of Israeli clients. As for the
Palestinians (a term restricted to the Arab inhabitants of
Palestine after the creation of the state of Israel), whose
tragedy secreted the largest diaspora among the Arabs, they have
had to endure for decades tedious security checks and hardships,
whether they flew westbound via Tel Aviv or had to cross the
Allenby bridge and fly via Amman in Jordan. Striving to reduce
the burden on travelers in order to improve the economy was
hence only natural as the Palestinians achieved through arduous
negociations some degree of autonomy in Gaza and small parts of
the West Bank in the mid-nineties. |
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II- Difficult Beginnings 1994-2000 |
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The idea of an international airport in the
territories administered by the Palestinian Authority was
particularly difficult to accept by Israeli negotiators for both
security concerns (fearing that such airports would become ports
of entry for arms and Palestinian militants living abroad,
feeding the hostile movements within the territories), and
symbolic reasons (international airports are usually attributes
of independent states). Israeli approval was achieved only by
restricting possible sites to the Gaza strip and by accepting
close and direct Israeli supervision at all levels of operation.
While officially declared as a temporary hub by the Palestinian
Authority, it was obvious that the construction of the Gaza
International Airport (GZA) was the best that could be
accomplished before a comprehensive peace agreement was reached.
Works on GZA started on January 20th 1996. The costs of building
the airport, 75 million USD, were mainly covered by donations
from Japan, the European Union and Morocco. Located on the
Palestinian side of the border with Egypt near Rafah, it had a
single runway that could handle most airliner types including
the Boeing 747. The airport itself was designed to handle up to
700,000 passengers yearly. |
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Left: The terminal building, GZA. Photo from
the Gaza International Airport Website.
Right: Palestinian Airlines Boeing 727. From The Palestinian
Airlines Website. |
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Awaiting the official inauguration of GZA,
Palestinian Airlines was cleared to start operating from Port
Said Airport, in Egypt, using an initial fleet of two Fokker
F-50s donated by the Dutch government and a Boeing 727 donated
by Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The airline's first flight,
PF141 carried hajj pilgrims to Jeddah on January 10th 1997.
During the hajj season in 1997, 325 pilgrims were carried on
seven round trip flights between Port Said and Jeddah. The
airline continued operating out of Egypt ad-hoc flights and
scheduled flights between Al-Arish (in Sinai, close to the
border with Palestine) and Amman until GZA was inaugurated on
November 24th 1998. The airline officially transferred its base
to GZA and started operating scheduled flights from Gaza on
November 27th 1998. Flights were initially launched between
Gaza, Amman and Cairo. Palestinian Airlines registered 64
airliner movements in December 1998, carrying 1706 passengers. |
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A Palestinian Airlines Fokker F50, seen in
Luxor, Egypt. Copyright Charles Falk @Airliners.net |
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Palestinian Airlines continued
to develop through 1999. The airline carried 60,446 passengers,
out of the 87,036 passengers who traveled through GZA during
that year (= 70% of the total), and registered 1482 airliner
movements, with its small fleet of 3 airliners. It was also in
1999 that the airline joined international air transport
organisations, including the Arab Air Carriers Organization (AACO)
and IATA (member serial number 400). In 2000, the network
included flights to Amman, Istanbul (flights launched on June
6th, 2000), Larnaca, Cairo, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha.
Plans were laid for the modernization of the fleet. Two De
Havilland Dash-8s were purchased in order to reinforce regional
frequencies, they were delivered by the summer of the same year.
Two Canadair Regional Jets were ordered and there were plans for
the lease or purchase of 3 Boeing 737s in order to expand the
network towards Athens, Rome, Frankfurt, Paris and London. In
the meantime, an Ilyushin Il62 was leased-in as to respond to a
higher demand for flights to the Gulf. Palestinian Airlines'
highest level of operation was in the Summer of 2000. Other
airlines flying to GZA at that time included Russavia, Tarom,
Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian and Egyptair.
The airline was grounded in October 2000 following the start of
the Al-Aqsa Intifada and was forced to move to El Arish
International Airport in December 2001, after destruction by
Israeli military forces. of the runway at its previous base,
Yasser Arafat International Airport, where it operated limited
services.
2001-2002
On December 12th 2001 GZA was bombed by the Israeli army, which
warplanes hit the control tower. In January 10th 2002, the 60
million USD runway was competely destroyed by the Israeli army,
shattering hopes for the resumption of flights to the airport in
the forseeable future. |
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