Yiftah Ron-Tal, chairman of the Israel Airports Authority board and a former IDF general, declared Wednesday that there will be no flight cancellations at Ben Gurion Airport, even if additional American refueling aircraft arrive in Israel, speaking on Kan News's Bahatzi Hayom program. His comments come against the backdrop of ongoing regional tension and concern over possible escalation with Iran.
"Fortunately there is a policy that was only updated in the last two days by the transportation minister, and I agree with it 1,000 percent," Ron-Tal said. "There is no intention whatsoever to close Israel's airspace, even given the sensitive strategic and security situation we are in."
A Direct Contradiction From The Airport's Own CEO
Ron-Tal's remarks stand in stark contrast to statements made a day earlier, on the same program, by the Airports Authority's director-general, Sharon Kadmi, who warned that Ben Gurion would not be able to carry out its full flight schedule if it is forced to absorb additional American refueling planes. "We cannot bring in even one more refueling aircraft to Ben Gurion," Kadmi said. "If one comes in, we will start canceling flights."
The warning is not new. Kadmi has spent weeks publicly sounding alarms about the toll dozens of US Air Force refueling planes parked at Ben Gurion and Ramon Airport have taken on available gate space for commercial aircraft. In one letter that surfaced last month, Kadmi warned Transportation Ministry officials that without a resumption of the agreed removal plan, a critical shortage of aircraft parking positions would emerge by July 23, forcing the Authority to order the cancellation of roughly 10 flights a day, and he had earlier estimated that as many as 2.4 million tickets could ultimately be affected without a solution, with one in every four summer passengers at risk of receiving a cancellation notice.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev has pushed back sharply against the continued US presence, at one point urging Prime Minister Netanyahu directly to demand the tankers be relocated, warning of billions of shekels in economic damage to airlines and the tourism sector.
Record Passenger Numbers, For Now
Despite the tension between the airport's leadership, Ron-Tal pointed to record passenger figures as evidence the situation remains under control. He said Ben Gurion has already reached 90,000 passengers a day, adding that "everything is being done in coordination with the defense establishment."
According to Airports Authority data, more than 2 million passengers are expected to pass through Ben Gurion in July, a roughly 25 percent increase over the same period last year, with Terminal 1 alone expected to handle about 230,000 international passengers this month following its reopening after Operation Rising Lion.
Ron-Tal said he is aligned with the Transportation Ministry's policy that Israel's airspace will not close, a position Minister Regev has publicly reiterated in the past, saying the ministry has worked to keep the skies open heading into summer and to meet growing demand for flights to and from Israel. The government has also approved a special compensation mechanism of up to 55 million shekels for Israeli airlines over empty flights they were forced to operate during Operation Rising Lion.
What's Actually At Stake
The tension between Ron-Tal's public reassurance and Kadmi's operational warnings reflects a real and unresolved standoff: dozens of American refueling aircraft continue to occupy a significant share of parking capacity at Ben Gurion and Ramon Airport, capacity the Airports Authority says it needs to keep pace with a summer travel season already running well above last year's volumes.
Whether Ron-Tal's confidence or Kadmi's warnings prove closer to reality may depend less on public messaging than on whether Washington moves forward with relocating its aircraft, and on how the broader security situation with Iran develops in the days ahead.
