EL AL Appeals to IATA To Gain Access To Saudi Airspace

Jerusalem, 1 March, 2018 (TPS) -- El Al has issued a request to the International Air Transport Association (IATA),  urging IATA Director General Alexandre de Juniac to intervene to gain Israeli airlines access to Saudi Arabia’s airspace.

“I am approaching you and kindly requesting IATA to intervene and to represent aviation industry’s interest by advocating equal overfly rights for all carriers over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and opposing any form of discrimination,” wrote El Al’s newly appointed CEO Gershon Ussishkin.

Ussishkin noted that he had also asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to intervene in the matter.

The letter, first reported by the Reuters news agency, comes in response to reports last month that Air India is offer short-route direct flights between Tel Aviv and Delhi that fly over Saudi airspace, which is off limits to Israeli airlines, cutting flight time by at least four hours compared with the indirect route currently taken by El Al.

Air India has yet to officially confirm that the flights will indeed be offered, and when the first reports came out, Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation Authority issued a firm denial. Despite the denial, Bloomberg News reported Monday that Israel has given authorization to Air India to offer the direct flights beginning March 6. Following the report, the Israeli Civil Aviation Authority denied that any such flights were scheduled, however, El Al’s recent actions appear to tell a different story.