The new airport of Israeli resort Eilat will work in October 2018, the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) informs on Friday.
"Today the project has reached the final stage: a dispatcher tower has already been built, and the terminal building is being completed. According to preliminary information, the airport "Ramon" will begin to function fully in October 2018, "the report said.
Eilat takes tourists through two airports. Domestic flights arrive at the airport in the city center, international - to the airport "Ovda", which is 60 km from the resort (the Russians fly here). According to forecasts, Ovda will serve about 400 thousand passengers this year, which is twice as much as in the same period last year.
As ATOR specifies, the new airport will mainly serve loukost-carriers and charter flights. He will not charge ground handling fees from both budget and regular airlines to attract as many carriers as possible.
Eilat will be visited by shuttles, in the future a short railway will be built. Transfer for tourists will be shorter by several times, as the distance between "Ramon" and the resort is less than 20 km. According to Israeli air experts, it takes less than two weeks to transfer all international flights, including Russian ones, from Ovda to Ramon.
The total cost of building the airport "Ramon" is estimated at 1.7 billion shekels (about $ 500 million). It is planned that the airport, which will receive international status, will serve from four to six flights per hour. Passenger terminal capacity will be 2 million passengers per year. The new air harbor will be a smaller copy of Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The object in Eilat is built by companies that worked on the Tel Aviv airport project.
According to the Ministry of Tourism of Israel, the Russian tourist flow to the country for 10 months of this year exceeded 336 thousand travelers, which is 47% more than in the same period last year.