An225 From Israel, joined May 2005, 165 posts, RR: 0 Posted (7 years 10 months 1 day 20 hours ago) and read 1937 times:
I just got this newsletter from Arkia Israel Airlines about their new charter route, TLV-KIX via OVB with a 265 pax all economy B757-300. This is going to be a one time inclusive-tour flight to Japan performed by Arkia.
IZ671 is going to take off for the leg TLV-OVB, on 26/10 at 09:30 and land on 2000 at Novosibirsk' Tolmachevo Airport in the Russian Federation. After a 1hr ground time for refueling the leg OVB-KIX will take place taking off on 21:00 and arriving KIX on 06:10, 27/10. Total journey (according to Arkia website) - 13:40 hours.
IZ672 is going to take off for the leg KIX-OVB, on 05/11 at 14:00 and land on 18:30. On this flight the stopover is for 3hrs. The leg OVB-TLV will commence on 19:30 and arriving TLV on 22:30. Total journey is 15:30.
According to the Great Circle Mapper website the total distance is 9113 km (5663 miles): TLV-OVB is 2799 miles long (4504 km), and OVB-KIX is 2864 miles long (4609 km). I think that the actual distance is going to be even bigger since this site gives you the direct flight path, which means that this is plotted over some unfriendly territory as Syria, Iran and Iraq, so it will probably be around 9380 km (5829 miles): TLV-SSX-VOG-OVB-KIX (SSX and VOG are just waypoints, not actual stops). One hell of a distance to ride on a narrow body airliner.
This is IMHO almost insane from the view point of the passengers to take a flight like this one:
Narrow body, no PTV's therefore very limited IFE, limited capacity for catering (although they can put the refill catering in the cargo holds and put it onboard during the stopovers in OVB). I mean Arkia uses this aircraft on domestic flights (TLV-ETH) and European routes - this is not an airplane for long-haul, as you can see from this pic:
FlyPrivate From United States of America, joined Aug 2004, 105 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (7 years 10 months 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1785 times:
This is correct. The owners of Arkia, the Burovich brothers bought El Al, Israel's flag carrier, so the government forced them to sell all the other aviation assets they have.
They sold a few months ago the 75% of the company's stocks to Arkia employees that had already 25% of the stocks. Now the employees sold some of the stocks to a private group.
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