Other Middle East and Africa Frequent Flyer Programs - RJ to Iraq

Does anyone know what the status is on RJ's flying to Iraq? I was under the impression that they flew there and that seems to be confirmed by the route map on their website.

However, flights don't seem to be listed anywhere (e.g. Amadeus timetable, Oneworld desktop tool, RJ's own desktop tool, Oneworld pdf timetables) and they don't seem to be book-able at least not on any online tools including RJ's website.

Does anyone have any clues on this?

I'd be guessing for safety reasons schedules are not advertised for fear of unscrupulous 'plane spotters'.

CJ

Yes, I thought of that as a possibility but then wouldn't you expect all airlines to do the same? OS for instance seems quite happy to publish its EBL schedule.

Might it have something to do with who's operating the flights? I vaguely recall reading somewhere that they're operated by some other company?

I think schedules would have to be announced. Unscrupulous plane spotters could just as easy book a ticket to find out the times, no?

Yes they do fly Erbil

...and by the way it's not all what you see on TV there is a big chunk of Iraq which is reasonably settled again.

TK also flies ISt-BGW-IST 5x/week and the schedules are published on their website.

You need to book directly with RJ. One of the benefits of flying with them rather than some of the ex-DXB smaller carriers is that you don't need to have a visa or other suitable ID prior to departure. No chance that the flights aren't listed to deter planespotters with unusual hardware - don't forget they're flying their new Embraers to Erbil! Just not the sort of ticket you're going to get through a regular GDS.

I've had some interesting flights on South African-registered Fokkers and 737-200s wet leased to RJ, but they're now flying their own metal into Baghdad, an A320 with reasonable seating, crewed by RJ themselves. Really, as BarneyArnie says, most of the country is getting normalised.

Reckon on paying a few hundred dollars each way. Their reliability is far greater than Iraqi. Far, far greater.