In a historic first flight between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an Israeli commercial aircraft entered Saudi Arabia’s airspace for the very first time.
Flight LY971, operated by an El Al Boeing 737-900ER, is the first commercial flight from Israel to the UAE. The flight follows the U.S.-brokered peace deal between Israel and the UAE. On Saturday, the country repealed a law boycotting Israel that was active since 1972. The aircraft was carrying U.S. and Israeli delegations to Abu Dhabi and had the word peace written on it in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
Aboard the flight were delegates and other high officials including President Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner who headed the secret talks resulting in the peace deal. The deal is set to normalise relations and is the first arrangement between an Arab country and Israel in over twenty years. Though Saudi Arabia has indicated it is not ready to have a similar arrangement, it allowed the El Al airliner to fly in its airspace in order to cut flight time. This was the first time ever that this was allowed.