Skip to main content

"Far East Not Far...": Israel PM After Carriers Can Directly Fly To India

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday welcomed the authorisation for Israeli carriers to fly over Oman as a "great day" for the aviation industry as it will connect the country directly with India and also help establish Israel as the main transit point between Asia and Europe.

"The Far East is not so far away and the skies are no longer the limit", Mr Netanyahu said in a statement after receiving the Omani authorisation.

"This is a day of great news for Israeli aviation. Israel has, in effect, become the main transit point between Asia and Europe", the Israeli prime minister added.

Israel received authorisation from Saudi Arabia and the Israeli leader said that he worked since his 2018 visit to Oman on getting permission for Israeli carriers to fly over its airspace so that they could go directly to India and onwards to Australia.

Oman and Israel do not have diplomatic ties.

"This was achieved today, after considerable effort, including in recent months. Here is good news - Israel is opening up to the east on an unprecedented scale", Netanyahu stressed.

Until now, Israeli airlines' flights to East Asia, India, and Thailand were forced to fly south to avoid the Arabian Peninsula - a route that added two and a half hours and wasted expensive fuel, local media reported.

With the Omani announcement, Israeli flights can shave off two to four hours to popular destinations like India and Thailand.

The development could potentially reduce ticket prices as well, given that airlines would save money on fuel.

Air India has been flying from Tel Aviv to Delhi directly using Saudi and Omani airspace, which saves time and makes the flights much more cost-efficient.

Last year Saudi Arabia allowed Israeli airlines to use its airspace but because Omani airspace was closed, Israeli carriers could not use the route to fly to Asia. The Saudi Arabian decision came after United States President Joe Biden visited the region last year.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/9d5rNhE

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Muhammad Now The Most Popular Name For A Baby In Great Britain, Data Shows

427 years after William Shakespeare wrote it for the first time in the great "tragedy" Romeo & Juliet, England is asking the quintessential question - "What's in a name?" - And this time wondering what significance that question might hold in another 42.7 years. The Department of Statistics in the United Kingdom has revealed in its latest dataset that Muhammad is officially the most popular name for a newborn boy in England and Wales. More than 4,600 babies were registered with that name in 2023 - the highest for a boy. Muhammad was the second-most popular name in 2022 as well. Noah, once the most popular name in UK, came a distant second this year, according to the Office for National Statistics or ONS. But the staff at Great Britain's statistical office has in-fact been observing the trend for a while now. Jotting down the most popular names in the UK, besides other important statistics, it revealed that Muhammad has been among the top 10 names for...

US Issues $25-Million Bounty On Venezuela President On Day Of His Oath

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose nearly 12 years in office have been marked by deep economic and social crisis, was sworn in for a third term on Friday, despite a six-month-long election dispute, international calls for him to stand aside and an increase in the US reward offered for his capture. Maduro, president since 2013, was declared the winner of July's election by both Venezuela's electoral authority and top court, though detailed tallies confirming his victory have never been published. Venezuela's opposition says ballot box-level tallies show a landslide win for its former candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who is recognized as president-elect by several countries including the United States. International election observers said the vote was not democratic. The months since the election have seen Gonzalez's flight to Spain in September, his ally Maria Corina Machado going into hiding in Venezuela, and the detentions of high-profile opposition figures and ...

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a...