Saudi Arabia clears use of kingdom’s airspace

Saudi Arabia has announced flights to and from the United Arab Emirates “from all countries” will now be able to use its airspace – a state - ment apparently allowing flyovers by Israel following a deal to normalise UAE-Israel relations.

The vaguely worded statement avoided naming Israel directly. However, the announcement came just days after the kingdom allowed the first direct Israeli commercial passenger flight to use its airspace to reach the UAE. Any direct flight between the two nations would need to use Saudi airspace to be commercially viable.

The statement makes no mention of the kingdom’ sri val, Iran, nor Qatar ,. Flights between those countries to the UAE would, in theory, not need to use the kingdom’s airspace.