For the first time: Israeli airline flies over Saudi Arabia

An Israeli airline will fly on Monday night – for the first time ever – over Saudi Arabian airspace.

The flight in question is an Arkia flight that will fly to Seychelles and pass over Saudi Arabia, a step that will shorten the flight by about 20 minutes.

The flight comes three weeks after the Saudis granted permission for Israeli airlines to fly over their airspace.

Captain Dean Gal, the chief pilot of the Airbus fleet, told Channel 12 News, “Tonight, the Arkia A321neo LR will be the first Israeli-registered plane to fly over Saudi airspace, not to Dubai but rather to Seychelles. The route will go through Jordan in the northern Dead Sea and head south to Petra and from there along the coast of the Red Sea of Saudi Arabia and from there will continue on the normal route through Eritrea.”

He added, “To date we have had to fly between Saudi Arabia and Sudan without control and with height restrictions. In the future we hope to carry out short flights to India and Sri Lanka.”

Israeli airlines are awaiting approval from Oman to fly to Thailand and other destinations in the East over its airspace. The reason is that the flight path to these destinations includes Saudi Arabia as well as Oman. Therefore, additional approval is required, and only then will it be possible to operate additional flights from Israel with shorter flight times and lower prices.