70 Years Ban Ends !Air India to fly over Saudi airspace to Israel from March 22

[INDIAPOSITIVE]

Air India to fly over Saudi airspace to Israel

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/air-india-to-fly-over-saudi-airspace-to-israel-128874

Air India announces direct flights to Israel over Saudi air space will begin next week
Air India announces direct flights to Israel over Saudi air space will begin next week

More direct route will cut two hours off the flight time

• 
  
  
  
  Flight times between Israel and India will be dramatically shortened (Photo: Getty Images)
  Direct flights between Israel and India using Saudi Arabian airspace will begin next Thursday, Air India has confirmed.
  
  The route will end a decades-old ban by the Saudi authorities on any flights landing or taking off from Israel.
  
  "The Air India flights to Israel will start from March 22. The flights will take around seven hours and five minutes, and fly over... Saudi airspace," Praveen Bhatnagar, a spokesman for Air India, told AFP.
  
  Flights between India and Israel currently take a route which skirts Saudi territory, flying over the Red Sea and around the Arabian peninsula until it reaches Yemen.
  
  Flying over Saudi Arabia reduces the flight time by around two hours.
  
  Air India's announcement means the airline will be at a competitive advantage over Israel's national carrier, El Al, which also operates direct flights from Tel Aviv to Delhi.
  
  
  
  
  Air India is one of two carriers that has recently flown directly between Israel and India (Photo: Getty Images)
  El Al is rumoured to also be seeking permission to fly in Saudi Arabian airspace but no official announcement has been made.
  
  This week's announcement came after closer ties between Israel and India resulted in a visit to Delhi by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in January.
  
  
  https://www.thejc.com/news/world/ai...saudi-air-space-will-begin-next-week-1.460931
  
  
  

 

[INDIAPOSITIVE]

Air India confirms its Israel flights over Saudi Arabia will start next week

Thrice-weekly flights starting March 22 will take seven hours, shaving nearly 2 hours off journey; El Al is demanding approval as well

NEW DELHI — State-run carrier Air India said Friday it will begin flights to and from Israel over Saudi airspace from next week, in a move that ends a decades-long Saudi ban on the use of its airspace for flights to Israel.

The new route is being launched at a time of growing ties between India and several Middle Eastern countries, and after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at a diplomatic realignment in the region earlier this month.

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“The Air India flights to Israel will start from March 22. The flights will take around seven hours and five minutes, and fly over… Saudi airspace,” airline spokesman Praveen Bhatnagar said.

The new service was first announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last July, with Netanyahu then suggesting in January the route could pass over Saudi Arabia.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi as Netanyahu arrives in India on January 14, 2018. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)
Riyadh has no official ties with Tel Aviv, with Israel’s national carrier El Al forced to detour over the Red Sea on its India service to avoid Saudi and Iranian airspace.

Netanyahu told reporters in Washington earlier this month that Air India had reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia for the route.

The airline’s spokesman at the time confirmed the launch schedule for a thrice-a-week service from New Delhi to Tel Aviv but couldn’t confirm the exact route.

Common challenges
Flying over Saudi Arabia significantly shortens the flight time over the proposed route.

Riyadh has maintained public silence about suggestions the kingdom has covert relations with Israel, but Netanyahu said earlier this month in Washington that Israel and the Arab states have “never been closer.”

“Most of the states in our region know — they know very well, believe me — that Israel is not their enemy, but their indispensable ally in confronting our common challenges and seizing our common opportunities,” Netanyahu also said at a public event in the US capital.

Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel last year, and has pushed for investment, technology cooperation and closer defense ties between the two countries.

Saudi Arabia and its immediate neighborhood is also strategically important for India as the major source of the country’s energy imports.

The wider region also hosts millions of Indian migrant workers who send billions of dollars in remittances each year.

Currently, El Al is the only airline offering direct flights from Israel to India, with a Tel Aviv-Mumbai route lasting around 8.5 hours.

In order to avoid Saudi Arabia, which has hitherto prohibited flights to and from Israel over its airspace, the plane must detour over the Red Sea and around the Arabian Peninsula, adding some two hours to the journey.

El Al recently turned to the International Civil Aviation Authority asking for its help in also getting permission to fly to India via Saudi airspace.

After @netanyahu told press traveling with him that Air India will fly to Israel over Saudi Arabia, after Air India denied it was a done yet, now this…. letter from EL AL to President of ICAO demanding equal treatment if it happens pic.twitter.com/o3GNvTNKTs

— Ruth Marks Eglash (@reglash) March 7, 2018

Saudi Arabia would violate UN-sanctioned regulations should it allow Indian planes to fly through its airspace en route to Israel without granting the same access to Israeli flight companies, the Bloomberg news site quoted El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin saying in a letter to ICAO president Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu.

If El Al had to continue its circuitous and costlier route to India, it would mean giving an “unfair advantage” to Air India.

The prime minister has acknowledged that the agreement could hurt El Al.

Netanyahu told business leaders while in India in January that an “efficient and direct route” between the countries was an important goal.


https://www.timesofisrael.com/air-i...ights-over-saudi-arabia-will-start-next-week/

https://twitter.com/x/status/975395582868119553

https://twitter.com/x/status/975280646108069889

https://twitter.com/x/status/975091926188941312

https://twitter.com/x/status/971762247729950720

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

India and Israel have great relation. India buy weapons from Israel.

 

[Pak-Americanos]

Pakistan should request the same. Why are pakistanies denied relations when even our “bhai” Turkey and Erdogan has relations with Israel?

 

[war&peace]

@The SC @Saif al-Arab any comments..

 

[HAIDER]

@The SC @Saif al-Arab any comments..

lol

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Pakistan Airforce Will shoot any non Muslim flights over brotherly Saudia Arabia going to Israel. I smell Iranian sazish in this. Israel/Iran/USA or India will not fly over KSA.

That is is ummah promise. Mohammed Bin Salman and KSA air chief has telephone number to PAF Air HQ in Islamabad. One call and F-16s will be scrambled. WE even have our man Gen. Raheel Sharif in KSA in charg of Islamic Alliance to stop such 'neferious' designs by Yehoodi, Hindoo, Irani mafia.

 

[war&peace]

lol

I remember this news surfaced some times ago and some of the Arab members ridiculed and dismissed it. MBS and UAE Shaikhs are providing all sorts of services to Israel that even the "business ladies" refuse.

 

[Cthulhu]

Long live the Jewish Ummah.

 

[Muhammed45]

India and Israel have great relation. India buy weapons from Israel.

India buys weapon from Turkey too, it cannot make alliance

This route was banned by almost all of Islamic countries, except for Saudi Arabia. An other credit to Ale Yahood, however they have had secret flights to Tel Aviv. They just think we are all as*.

 

[Pak-Americanos]

Pakistan Airforce Will shoot any non Muslim flights over brotherly Saudia Arabia going to Israel. I smell Iranian sazish in this. Israel/Iran/USA or India will not fly over KSA.

That is is ummah promise. Mohammed Bin Salman and KSA air chief has telephone number to PAF Air HQ in Islamabad. One call and F-16s will be scrambled. WE even have our man Gen. Raheel Sharif in KSA in charg of Islamic Alliance to stop such 'neferious' designs by Yehoodi, Hindoo, Irani mafia.

Pak should also ban all flights from Ummah to India. If any flights caught flying to India Pakistan should shoot it down or demand the very least ransom money in form of bitcoins as compensation for hurting the feelings of Ummah. That will show them for betrayal.

 

[Muhammed45]

Pak should also ban all flights from Ummah to India. If any flights caught flying to India Pakistan should shoot it down or demand the very least ransom money in form of bitcoins as compensation for hurting the feelings of Ummah. That will show them for betrayal.

You speak as if there is no Indo Pak flights. WTF?

 

[Pak-Americanos]

You speak as if there is no Indo Pak flights. WTF?

Are you calling Ummah treacherous? Including PIA?

 

[Jugger]

Israel always gets the long end of the stick. Always..!
How does Israel score so many diplomatic victories again and again is just mind boggling.

 

[Muhammed45]

Israel always gets the long end of the stick. Always..!
How does Israel score so many diplomatic victories again and again is just mind boggling.

AIPAC
Queen Elizabeth
Saudi brethren

See the similarities and polotical/military/economic overlap,,, enjoy