Aviation statistics for Israel point to a real revolution: In the month of October alone, 15,663 planes crossed Israel’s air space. Out of these, more than 12,000 landed in Ben Gurion Airport, Israel’s main air-gate. Most of the other flights continued toward other Middle East countries.

This constitutes an increase of 63% over October 2021. Part of the increase is the global rebound from the pandemic, but observers also point to the 2020 Abraham Accords that established diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Later, Morocco in North Africa and Sudan in east Africa signed similar agreements.

For most of its existence, Israel has been an aviation “dead end.” In other words, Ben Gurion was a departure point and an arrival point, but never a hub for connecting flights, for several reasons.

Most of the airlines of Arab countries (except for Egypt and Jordan) circumvented Israel when traveling to and from Europe. Israeli airplanes were forbidden from flying over certain Arab countries, thus forced to take much longer routes. Also, several neighboring countries prohibited the arrival of Israeli nationals.