Originally Posted by
N830MH
They can allowed overfly KSA airspace. If there is no problem at all. They will relaxed the restrictions.
Can you please provide a source for that rather extra-ordinary claim? If something that drastic had changed in the last 2 weeks I think we would have heard about it.
Thanks!
(13 August 2020)
The airports are some 2,000km apart but while Emirates and Etihad Airways would, in theory, be able to operate services through the Bahrain, Baghdad or Jeddah flight information regions without hindrance, El Al remains restricted in its freedom to transit Arab airspace.
This is particularly critical in the case of the vast Jeddah FIR, encompassing Saudi Arabian airspace, the size of which serves as a barrier to efficient flightpaths between Israel and several Asian destinations.
Without Saudi transit, El Al flights to the UAE would need to fly a lengthy detour south along the Red Sea, doubling the distance.
The transit of Saudi airspace became a high-profile issue more than two years ago when Air India started operating to Tel Aviv from Delhi along a route which took it through the Jeddah FIR – provoking the ire of El Al, which complained about the distortion of competition given that the Israeli carrier was forced to operate a longer route.
Etihad Airways flew a landmark humanitarian service from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv on 19 May, using an Airbus A330-200.
The aircraft’s circuitous flightpath avoided Saudi airspace altogether, instead following the standard northern route along the Persian Gulf and through eastern Iraq before it eventually turned to head south, only approaching Israel in the final stage from the eastern Mediterranean.