FLUG REVUE September 2003: Eilat airport

ISRAELS HOLIDAY AIRPORT EILAT

By Shlomo Aloni/SST

No one could deny that Eilat airport is conveniently situated for access: only 300 metres separates the southern end of the runway from the Red Sea, while the 300 kilometre long Arava desert motorway branches off towards Tel Aviv directly at the northern end of the airport. Despite this, in 2002 some 1.3 million passengers preferred to travel to the holiday metropolis by a flight lasting only 30 to 45 minutes rather than endure the exhausting, five-hour desert crossing by car in the scorching heat.

The southernmost city of Israel is popular among tourists not least because of its underwater attractions to divers, the inviting sea temperatures and the lively nightlife. 12,000 hotel beds of all categories are on offer. The typical Eilat visitor from Israel chooses a three to four day package holiday consisting of flight and hotel, whereas international holidaymakers normally stay for between seven and ten days.

The annual throughput of passengers, well over one million, however, says nothing about the particularly extreme peak loads sustained at the start and finish of the package holidays, for traffic is concentrated into only three days of the week, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Most of the passengers on Thursdays and Sundays are handled in a period of a few hours in the mornings while on Saturdays only the evening hours are used. Airport operations director Zeev Sarig experiences days when 10,000 passengers on 120 flights are channelled through the 2,800m2 Eilat terminal, which must count as one of the highest peak loads world-wide in this category.

Under these conditions, the international traffic has to fit into the off-peak hours. But the airport is only open between 5:30am and 11:30pm on weekdays, between 6am and 6pm on Fridays and between 7pm and 11:30pm on Saturdays, for between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday, public life comes to a standstill during the Jewish Sabbath. However, since 2000, as a result of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, the terrorist attacks of 11 September and the weak world economy, international traffic has declined significantly.

From an operational viewpoint, Eilat handles aircraft up to the size of the Boeing 757. In the past, the odd Boeing 767 also headed to the airport, but more of these would require additional investment in the infrastructure, as ramp space, in particular, is tightly constrained in Eilat. El Al therefore offers morning and evening connecting flights on the ATR 42, Boeing 737 or 757 to Tel Aviv, to transport long haul passengers from and to the numerous international flights at Ben Gurion Airport.

Because Eilat has neither slots nor parking spaces for additional international flights at weekends, a separate international, civilian terminal with 6,000m2 of floorspace was built sixty kilometres to the north, at the Ovda air force base. This belongs to the Israel Airport Authority as well and is run by its staff from Eilat under the same designation, “Eilat and Ovda International Airports”. Avi Hover, chief co-ordinator for the two airports, adds that Ovda also serves as an alternative airfield for Tel Aviv that can be called upon at any time.

After the 1994 peace treaty, the Israeli government actually planned to build a new 4,000m2 terminal close to Aqaba International Airport in Jordan, by the Israeli border, as another location to handle the international traffic. However, the Israeli Greens successfully defeated the accelerated state approval process so that the entire project is currently on ice.

Back to the city airport of Eilat. Located just between the city centre and the two hotel districts, aircraft noise and security are subjects hotly discussed in Eilat. Aircraft taking off and landing fly right next to the numerous high-rise hotels and above the city centre. At the same time, the airport grounds cut through the congested city. For this reason, city planners are already pleading for the cramped and growth-restricted airport to be relocated.

Despite the lack of a separate taxiway and with only two parking positions for larger passenger aircraft, Eilat copes with ten to twenty times as much traffic as comparable airports. Because a 757 cannot taxi past other aircraft to its parking position, ramp utilisation has to be precisely planned. Often smaller aircraft are even required to fly holding patterns until the 757 is finally standing by the terminal. But at least the passengers only have a small distance to walk from each of the five parking positions into the terminal building. The four parking spaces reserved for turboprop aircraft in the northern General Aviation area are considerably further away and are therefore not used for passenger flights.

Due to the constraints outlined above, it has been agreed for some years that a new airport should be built to the north of the city. But although investment in the old airport came to a standstill, the building plans made little progress. It was thus without any expansion that in 2001 the stretched Boeing 757-300 (265 passengers) started flying to the old airport. Even under conservative estimates of five percent annual growth, Eilat will have to handle nearly two million passengers by the end of the decade.

However, Eilat's airport director, Zeev Sarig, reckons that planning procedures for the new airport will take at least seven years and he has therefore agreed an interim solution for the existing location with the authorities until the new airport comes online. Under this solution, a new domestic terminal will be built to the north of the present terminal building, following which the present terminal will be dedicated to international traffic, air cargo and group travel.

In March this year the location of the future new airport was also finally agreed. Twenty kilometres to the north of the city, it will have a 3,600 metre runway and parking positions for thirty commercial aircraft and forty small planes. The terminal will be have 50,000m2 of floorspace. Costing around $200 million, the new location will replace both the city airport and also the civilian operation in Ovda. However, since June 2003 building of the interim terminal in Eilat has been suspended temporarily for financial reasons.

From FLUG REVUE 9/2003

Last updated 11 August 2003

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