TEL AVIV, July 14 -- New York-based Tower Air Monday inaugurated its departure terminal at Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv. The new terminal should ease the unpleasant crowding at the main terminal towards midnights when several carriers fill jumbo jets for New York.
Tower Air's president, Morris Nachtomi, told reporters his carrier intends to expand its Middle East business in the near future. It would like to fly to Cairo too. The French authorities have rejected his request to carry passengers between Paris and Tel Aviv, he said. Last month Tower Air began flying from New York to Athens and on to Tel Aviv. Nachtomi said 80 percent of the passengers passing through Athens began their flights in the United States, and only 20 percent in Greece. Nachtomi said Tower Air retired an old vintage Boeing 747-100 in June and expects to retire a second at the end of the year. Both aircraft were of the first series Boeing built. Tower Air expects to replace them with two 747-200s aircraft built in 1985 and 1986. Then it will fly 12 Boeing 747-200s and four 747-100 aircraft. He said Tower retired the craft in June because 'extending its life' by three months, to the end of the peak summer season, would cost it $6 million 'and it doesn't make sense.' ---
Copyright 1997 by United Press International. All rights reserved. ---
