ERUSALEM – Air India launched on Thursday the first scheduled service toIsrael to be allowed to cross Saudi airspace.
The inaugural flight took off from New Delhi at 1230 GMT and was to land inTel Aviv at 1945 GMT, the Indian state carrier says.
“We will be flying non-stop from New Delhi to Tel Aviv from March 22 overSaudi airspace,” Air India spokesman Praveen Bhatnagar told AFP.
There will now be three flights weekly in each direction, ending adecades-long Saudi ban on the use of its airspace for commercial flights toIsrael.
Israel’s national carrier El Al currently operates an India service toMumbai that takes a detour over the Red Sea to avoid flying over SaudiArabia and Iran.
Saudi Arabia and Israel have no official diplomatic relations, like much ofthe Arab world. Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab countries with peacetreaties with Israel.
The flight approval comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahudescribed relations with the Arab world as the “best ever”, with commonconcerns over Iran drawing them closer together.
Leaders of Arab countries have not publicly made similar comments, thoughthat does not necessarily mean they dispute Netanyahu’s claim.
They face sensitivities within their own countries, where the Jewish stateis often viewed with intense hostility.
Israeli analyst Jonathan Spyer said that the Saudi concession showed thatpositive signals were being sent despite the lack of an Israeli-Palestinianpeace treaty, long seen as a prerequisite for relations between the Jewishstate and the Arab world.
“I think that what this shows is even in the absence of that you can havesmall gestures that are of real meaning,” Spyer, director of Israel’s RubinCentre for Research in International Affairs, told AFP.
“That’s what I think that this Saudi decision to allow the overflightsconsists of. It’s small but significant,” he said.
*‘General rebranding’*
During a May 2017 Middle East tour, US President Donald Trump flew fromRiyadh to Tel Aviv on Air Force One in what is believed to have been amongthe few direct flights from Saudi Arabia to Israel.
Trump says he is working on a plan for peace between Israel and thePalestinians.
Spyer said that his administration appears to see Riyadh as “crucial formuch of what they want to do on the Israeli-Palestinian track”. – Agencies