Come Fly the (Cheap and) Friendly Skies to Israel...

Finally! Here's a fresh idea coming out of the Jewish Agency:

In an effort to increase tourism and Aliyah to Israel, the Jewish Agency is planning to encourage an open-skies policy, whose goal is to promote competition among airlines, thereby reducing airfares.

It added, however, that the recent increase in flight taxes is hampering its ability to bring even more Jews to Israel.

"An open-skies policy that will bring reduced airfares will allow us to utilize the resources to bring thousands more Jews to Israel," Director-General of the Jewish Agency Ze'ev Bielski, said. "It is important to encourage competition to bring lower prices. This will directly contribute to the increase of travel to Israel and as a result, will bring an increase of Aliyah."

Another idea which I have heard from a number of people is the "Oleh Regel" plan (or Jerusalem Pilgrimage Plan). Here are the details: there are 3 major Jewish holidays during the year: Peasach, Shavuot and Succot. Anyone who would commit in advance to come to Israel for the 3 holidays would get 3 round-trip tickets for the price of two...

Both are ideas that I think should be strongly considered by the government, the Jewish Agency, as well as by El Al and IsrAir (for whom, in the long-run will make more money of a plan like this).