Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Air India To Begin Direct Flights To Israel Over Saudi Airspace

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Air India will begin direct flights to Tel Aviv, flying over Saudi airspace.

The flights for the Indian national carrier will begin on Thursday, and take about 7 hours, according to the airline, AFP reported.  Flying through Saudi airspace knocks more than two hours off the time of the flight.

El Al, Israel’s national airline, is currently the only airline to offer direct flights between Tel Aviv and Mumbai, but avoids Saudi airspace by flying over the Red Sea, past Yemen and around the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi airspace has been closed to any airline that flies to Israel. El Al has asked the International Civil Aviation Authority to intervene to convince Saudi Arabia to allow the airline also to fly over its airspace between India and Israel.

Saudi Arabia and Israel do not have official diplomatic relations. Reports in recent months have suggested that the countries may have covert relations, however.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited India in January. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Israel last year, the first Indian prime minister to do so.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.