As The Jerusalem Post put it, “It’s about to get a little easier to do business between Silicon Valley and the Start-up Nation.”
That’s right, folks: United Airlines will commence nonstop service from San Francisco to Tel Aviv on March 30, 2016.
“Success!!! We did it,” declares sfotlv.org, the website of a local petition that challenged any airline to offer a flight from San Francisco to Tel Aviv. As we noted when we reported on the petition last year, flying to Israel from San Francisco is a grueling ordeal for the many Israelis who call Silicon Valley home.
United’s press release even cited the petition as part of the motivation for the new flight: “As part of United’s evaluation for serving San Francisco (SFO) to Tel Aviv (TLV) nonstop, the airline considered the opinions of thousands of customers who petitioned for the service through the SFOTLV.ORG petition effort.”
The flights will use the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and will be offered three times a week: departing SFO at 8 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and arriving 8:10 p.m. the next day; departing TLV at 12:55 a.m. Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and arriving at 6 a.m. the same day.