New Delhi: Air India’s historic Delhi-Tel Aviv non-stop flight over Saudi airspace, the first flight to do so in over several decades on March 22 ran into controversy when the Israeli national carrier EL AL decided to go to an Israeli court against the grant of overflight rights to only Air India.
However, former diplomats like former Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, term EL AL’s decision as “ridiculous and short- sighted”.
The Israeli airline “should be looking at the larger strategic picture where Saudi Arabia has sent a very important political signal that Israel is not so much out of bounds that it will not permit overflight over Saudi territory by foreign airlines,” Sibal says.
He is of the opinion that EL AL does not have much business in India and so the airline can’t be running into major financial losses because of denial of overflight rights over Saudi Arabia on its flights to India.
Currently, EL AL flies to Mumbai using a longer route avoiding Saudi air space which is closed to it.
This detour means that an EL AL flight takes almost 2 hours 10 minutes more than the 7 hours 15 minutes that the Air India flight takes to cover the distance.
According to former Air India Chairman and Managing Director Rohit Nandan, the launch of the flight is a “diplomatic victory for India.” Under Nandan, Air India had looked at launching a Mumbai-Tel Aviv flight in 2014 but the idea was dropped due to denial of overflight rights that prolonged the flight duration and made it economically unviable.
If former diplomats are to be believed the spadework for Air India’s Delhi-Tel Aviv flight began almost two years before the flight took off when the Barack Obama Administration managed to get the Iran Nuclear Agreement finalised way back in January 2016.
Former Indian diplomats feel that the Iran nuclear deal saw Saudi Arabia and Israel slip closer together as they considered Iran as a bigger threat. The close relations that India has with both Israel and Saudi Arabia and the growing friendship between Israel and Saudi Arabia may have translated into the Arab Kingdom allowing Air India to overfly its airspace enroute to Israel.
Talmiz Ahmad, a former Indian Foreign Service officer who served as India’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman, told BusinessLine that Israel and Saudi Arabia have been working together since the Barack Obama Administration began work on the Iran nuclear deal. The fact that India enjoys a good relationship with both Saudi Arabia and Israel is also helping. “This (India-Saudi Arabia-Israel) is a triangular relationship based on very solid bilateral ties between the three nations though there is no triangular project which they are doing jointly except for this airline business,” he says.
01/04/18 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line
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However, former diplomats like former Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal, term EL AL’s decision as “ridiculous and short- sighted”.
The Israeli airline “should be looking at the larger strategic picture where Saudi Arabia has sent a very important political signal that Israel is not so much out of bounds that it will not permit overflight over Saudi territory by foreign airlines,” Sibal says.
He is of the opinion that EL AL does not have much business in India and so the airline can’t be running into major financial losses because of denial of overflight rights over Saudi Arabia on its flights to India.
Currently, EL AL flies to Mumbai using a longer route avoiding Saudi air space which is closed to it.
This detour means that an EL AL flight takes almost 2 hours 10 minutes more than the 7 hours 15 minutes that the Air India flight takes to cover the distance.
According to former Air India Chairman and Managing Director Rohit Nandan, the launch of the flight is a “diplomatic victory for India.” Under Nandan, Air India had looked at launching a Mumbai-Tel Aviv flight in 2014 but the idea was dropped due to denial of overflight rights that prolonged the flight duration and made it economically unviable.
If former diplomats are to be believed the spadework for Air India’s Delhi-Tel Aviv flight began almost two years before the flight took off when the Barack Obama Administration managed to get the Iran Nuclear Agreement finalised way back in January 2016.
Former Indian diplomats feel that the Iran nuclear deal saw Saudi Arabia and Israel slip closer together as they considered Iran as a bigger threat. The close relations that India has with both Israel and Saudi Arabia and the growing friendship between Israel and Saudi Arabia may have translated into the Arab Kingdom allowing Air India to overfly its airspace enroute to Israel.
Talmiz Ahmad, a former Indian Foreign Service officer who served as India’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman, told BusinessLine that Israel and Saudi Arabia have been working together since the Barack Obama Administration began work on the Iran nuclear deal. The fact that India enjoys a good relationship with both Saudi Arabia and Israel is also helping. “This (India-Saudi Arabia-Israel) is a triangular relationship based on very solid bilateral ties between the three nations though there is no triangular project which they are doing jointly except for this airline business,” he says.
01/04/18 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line
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