Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: not provided
An El Al 787 Dreamliner
(JNS) — Israel’s flagship carrier El Al announced Monday that it is suspending flights from Tel Aviv to Moscow until the end of March.
El Al temporarily halted the service last week after Azeri officials said that an Azerbaijani Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday was shot down by a Russian missile.
“After conducting a comprehensive situation assessment, El Al suspends all of its operations on the Tel Aviv-Moscow route until the end of the winter schedule (the end of March),” El Al said in a statement. “The decision comes after ongoing dialogue with the authorities in the country to understand the situation.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Sunday that the passenger plane was accidentally shot down by Russia, and that it had been jammed electronically by Russian air defenses while approaching the southern Russian city of Grozny from Baku.
President Vladamir Putin on Saturday apologized to Aliyev for the “tragic incident,” which he said occurred after Russian air defenses engaged Ukrainian drones.
Thirty-eight people were killed in the crash; 29 survived.
Azerbaijan Airlines, which resumed service to Tel Aviv last month, offers connecting service to Moscow.
