Israel’s National Airline EI AI announced on Tuesday that it was canceling all daytime flights to Eilat Airport near the Egyptian border, Israel Hayom reports.
The announcement comes after Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority changed the landing route for all planes arriving at the airport due to fears of rocket attacks from the Sinai Peninsula.
The new protocols, effective this week, call for planes to turn around over the Red Sea and then head for the airport. Until now, planes would circle around Eilat's mountain range and fly at low altitudes directly over the border with Egypt, something that puts them in the range of rockets and anti-air weaponry possessed by Islamist terrorists in Sinai.
Pilots have been practicing the new route in passenger-less flights over the past week.
EI AI said in a statement that it "did not receive a suitable response from the CAA to the questions put forth by aviation experts and El Al's chief pilot and we have not received any solutions to this point that have eased our minds regarding the safe operation of the planes according to the customary safety standards."
EI AI chairman said the company still had security concerns about the new CAA guidelines.