For several months now, the Israeli airlines, and primarily El Al, have been struggling to open the possibility of flying over Oman, and this after Saudi Arabia had already approved them to fly over its territory.
This is an important step for the companies, since the flights over Saudi Arabia and Oman are expected to shorten the flights to various destinations in the Far East by 2-3 hours.
At the moment, Oman is the one blocking the move - even though Saudi Arabia, as mentioned, gave Israeli companies the long-awaited approval almost four months ago.
Despite Oman's restriction, there are airlines that already fly the shortened routes over it and over Saudi Arabia, thus saving a lot of time for passengers to the Far East and back.
The two companies are Air India and Cathay Pacific: the former received special permission a few years ago, which made it the only company that operated direct flights on the shortened route.
It was recently joined by Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong, whose flights to the Far East are shorter than El Al flights.
Joined the shortened flights.
A Cathay Pacific plane, in 2017, photo: public relations
At the same time, the flights with a connection through Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Istanbul and other destinations also stop on the way to the Far East, thus actually boarding a new flight from those destinations, flights that are of course allowed to fly on the shortened routes.
In this case, a situation could arise where flights to Thailand with a short connection would be shorter than direct flights on the long route currently flown by El Al.
According to a test we conducted, in most cases they will also be significantly cheaper.
She already has more seniority.
An Air India plane, in 2017, photo: Reuters
In the inspection we held recently regarding the progress with Oman on the issue, it emerged that those dealing with it from the Israeli side claim that there is no real progress.
At the moment, Oman does not allow Al to fly over its territory, and the company is forced to fly a long and detour route.
Last week, Arkia canceled the new route that was supposed to take off to Goa in India, this following the fact that the Omanis do not approve of flying over their territory.
Israir does not operate routes to the Far East at this stage, so the issue is less relevant for it.
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