While several airlines are set to resume flights to Syria, Doha-based Qatar Airways has emerged as the first foreign airline to begin using Syrian airspace for overflight. It’s the first time in almost a decade that an international carrier (other than Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines) has both obtained permission from the Syrian government and then exercised its new right to overfly Damascus. Some Qatar Airways flights from Beirut and Larnaca have now started to fly over Syrian airspace.
Beirut and Larnaca are examples of two routes which require significant detours (and thus, more fuel) ever since the 2017 Saudi-led blockade banned Qatari jets from Saudi Arabia’s airspace, a violation of Saudi’s signed ICAO Chicago Convention.
By crossing Syrian airspace, today’s Qatar Airways Boeing 787 flight from Beirut reached Doha after a flight time of 2 hours, 26 minutes — exactly one hour shorter than last week’s 3 hours 26 minutes flight which avoided Syria and flew the usual detour. 
Any fuel saving (no matter how small) on a commercial flight is positive for an airline, but a fuel saving of one hour’s worth of flight time is very significant.
“The agreement came on the principle of reciprocity, as SyrianAir crosses Qatari airspace and never stopped flying to Doha throughout the war,” Transport Minister Ali Hammoud said.
The use of Syrian airspace would see “increased revenues in hard currency for the benefit of the Syrian state,” he added.
In an exclusive interview with GCEO of Qatar Airways HE Akbar al-Baker, he recently told me “In terms of actually flying to Syria, we need to be comfortable that we can operate into the country. We are not the enemies of the Syrian people, and an airline serves the people. But we do have insurance requirements; our aircraft are leased for the time being because we have started to sell our jets to lessors, and therefore we still have some constraints from leasing companies with regards to operating to Syria”.
In 2010, Damascus Airport scheduled around 400 weekly departures to over 50 international destinations. In the year prior to the civil war, the airport handled around 4.5mn passengers — and up until the war, was demonstrating promising year-on-year growth.
With stabilisation back on the horizon, airlines are wasting no time in preparing to make their move back into the Syrian market, with both previous operators and newcomers expected to announce nonstop flights to the country.
Despite Qatar Airways resuming use of Syria’s airspace, The US Department of Travel is continuing to specifically warn US citizens against flying on an airline that travels through Syrian airspace, and IATA (The International Air Transport Association), EASA (European Aviation Saftey Agency), among other regulators have warned airlines against flying over Syria, even at heights of 38,000ft. At present, Lebanon’s flag carrier, Middle East Airlines is the only non-Syrian/non-Iraqi carrier still flying over Syria (other than Qatar Airways) — but the airline does not land anywhere in the country.


* The author is an aviation analyst. Twitter handle: @AlexInAir
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