The Kingdom of Bahrain has resumed its flights with Syria, after a hiatus of more than ten years.
The Civil Aviation Affairs Authority in the Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications in Bahrain announced that it would allow the scheduling of regular flights with Syria, according to the Bahrain News Agency on its official website, on May 15.
The authority explained that details of the flight schedules and their number will be announced soon, after completing all procedures and issuing the official licenses in this regard.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Ministry of Transport welcomed the decision to resume operations, noting that the General Authority of Syrian Civil Aviation continues to take all necessary measures and requirements to serve this operation as usual, which benefits the air transport movement between the two countries, as reported by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
The General Director of Syrian Civil Aviation, Bassem Mansour, told SANA that the Syrian Aviation Authority will work in the coming period to program and schedule regular flights between the airports of the two countries, in coordination and cooperation with the relevant air transport authorities in Bahrain, pointing out that the dates and scheduling of the flights will be announced once arranged.
Bahrain’s decision came just before Manama hosts the Arab Summit today, Thursday, May 16th, attended by the President of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, and Bahrain pre-empted the arrival of the Syrian regime’s delegation by lighting the Syrian flag on one of its towers as a form of welcome for al-Assad.
This Bahraini move to resume flights followed a similar move by Saudi Arabia, as the local site “Hashtag,” on May 13th of this year, cited sources in the Civil Aviation Authority that work is underway to complete the necessary documents to start resuming flights between Syria and Saudi Arabia, after obtaining approval from the Saudi Kingdom.
The site mentioned that the first flight between the two countries would take place at the beginning of next week, with the companies Syrian Arab Airlines and Cham Wings preparing to start operations and return flights, after a 12-year break.
This step follows Saudi Arabia’s announcement last April, to allocate 77% of Syria’s annual Hajj quota to the government of the regime for the first time in 11 years since managing the case by the Supreme Hajj Committee of the Syrian Interim Government (SIG), a decision that came after the normalization of relations between Damascus and Riyadh last year.