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| Normalization: Egypt, Israel to launch direct flights between Sharm El-Sheikh and Tel Aviv during Passover |
| 2022-03-19 |
| [AlAhram] Egypt and Israel have agreed to expand direct flights between the two countries, launching next month a direct flight route between Tel Aviv and Sharm El-Sheikh during the Jewish holiday Passover, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office announced on Wednesday. According to the Israeli PM’s office, the new agreement was formulated over the last few days and was finalised on Tuesday in Egypt by an Israeli delegation led by the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) and the Egyptian government. Although the Israeli statement confirmed that the direct flights are expected to begin during the intermediate days of Passover in April, no official confirmation has been announced by the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry so far. The Egyptian flagship carrier has no direct flights between Sharm El-Sheikh and the Israeli capital except for transit flights. "This agreement will further warm the relations between Israel and Egypt," Bennett was quoted as saying in the statement, adding that the cooperation between our two countries is expanding in many fields and this is contributing to both peoples and to regional stability. According to the Israeli PM’s office, the expansion of flight routes was discussed during a meeting between Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Israeli PM Bennet during his visit to Sharm El-Sheikh in September. Bennett’s visit was the first visit by an Israeli prime minister to Egypt since 2011. Following the visit, Egypt’s state-owned airline EgyptAir announced that it would operate four direct flights weekly from Cairo to Tel Aviv for the first time in decades. In October, the first EgyptAir flight arrived at Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport. |
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