On the early of Sep. 1994, President Yasser Arafat issued a Presidential Decree No. 87/94 to establish the Palestinian Civil Aviation Authority and appointed Mr. Fayez Zedan as the chairman. Mr. Zedan was assigned to initiate the organizational infrastructure for aviation in Palestine including the formation of the structural and executive administrations of the the Aviation Authority, building airports, establishing and operating the Palestinian Airline Company.

The recently opened Gaza Airport offers scheduled flights to nearby countries. Direct air travel is also available through Lod Airport.  Jordan and Egypt have open borders with palestine. By sea, Palestine can only be reached through ferries from Haifa, Israel. There are regular ferries to/from Haifia, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt.

Many travel agencies feared their services would no longer be needed when many airlines and other travel companies began to sell directly to passengers over the Internet. They were afraid they would be victims of what management science experts call disintermediation.

Another worry was over the fact that airlines have been cutting back the commissions paid to travel agents on each tickets sold; the airlines feel that they are perfectly capable of dealing directly with their own passengers and do not need travel agents as much as in the past to fill seats.

Although many travel agents have since exited the industry, those who remain have managed to survive by promoting other travel products like cruise lines and train excursions, or by promoting their ability to aggressively research and assemble complex travel packages on a moment's notice (essentially acting as a very advanced concierge).

Travel agencies have been organized mostly since the start of commercial aviation although Thomas Cook was an early, pre-flight pioneer. Some travel agent companies operate with a chain of stores, such as Carlton Wagonlit; others are one store operations. Travel agencies do not sell airline tickets only; their services vary, and many of them sell more cruise ship packages than airline tickets. Most travel agencies also arrange car rental deals for their customers, and many concentrate on arranging charter or group trips to different destinations. For this, they deal with regular airlines, but many times, they also hire charter airlines. Many travel agencies work exclusively for a small group of airlines, cruise and car hire companies, and often, the logos of the companies they work with are displayed on the windows of the agency's office.

Travel agencies also deal with train and hotel companies. Generally, their goal is to try to fit an ideal schedule onto the requirements of each specific customer.

In the early era of model airplanes, airlines would have large plane models of their companies made and shipped to the travel agencies; these plane models are also available to the general public, but they are among the highest prized airline collectibles. - from Wikipedia.org