Israeli airline El Al completes first direct flight to UAE
Dhaka: A chartered El Al airliner carrying Israeli and American diplomats landed in the United Arab Emirates at 3:38 pm local time on August 31, completing a symbolic first direct flight from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi.
Officials said this would pave the way for formal diplomatic and commercial ties and might inspire other Arab nations to follow suit in normalising relations with the Jewish state.
The Israeli and American delegations, led by Jared Kushner for the Trump administration and Israel’s national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, arrived in Abu Dhabi for a day and a half of what were billed as “professional” meetings with Emirati counterparts on matters including health, commerce and security.
But the substance of those meetings seemed secondary, to the spectacle of the Israeli-marked El Al jet on the tarmac in Abu Dhabi. The plane flew the flags of all three nations and, with “peace” newly stenciled above the pilot’s side window in English, Hebrew and Arabic, provided the backdrop as a coterie of Israeli diplomats descended onto an Emirati red carpet, with Emirati television broadcasting the pageantry live.
The three hour 20 minute-flight from Ben-Gurion Airport — given the flight number LY971, a nod to the Emirati country code — marked another important first: about half an hour in, the pilot announced that the plane had entered Saudi airspace. While Saudi Arabia has allowed Air India jetliners to use its airspace to reach Israel, officials said this was the first time it had explicitly allowed an Israeli commercial jet to transit its skies.
Avoiding Saudi airspace would have meant about a seven-hour flight, said the captain, Tal Becker, who was given the honour of making history as El Al’s most senior pilot.
Though the trip was to the Emirates, the message being sent by both Israeli and American officials was very much aimed at the Palestinians.
Similarly, on August 30, alongside Kushner and Robert O’Brien, National Security Adviser of the US, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel had praised the deal-in-the-making with the UAE as sending a message that the Palestinians could no longer hold what he called a “veto” over Israel’s efforts to gain acceptance in the region.
