As per latest news reports emerging from the Middle East, Saudi Arabia had temporarily closed its airspace to Israeli flights for unknown reasons. On Tuesday, an Israel Airline flight got delayed for 5 hours at the Ben Gurion Airport before departing for Dubai.
The flight was supposed to take off at 9 am local time, but it was delayed because Saudi Arabia refused to grant the necessary permits. Although, an El Al flight had taken off for Dubai, the same afternoon with permission to fly through Saudi airspace.
Saudi Arabia had said earlier in November, that they would allow Israeli flights to use their airspace en route to Dubai.
The flights from Israel to the UAE will take eight hours instead of three without permission to fly over Saudi Arabia.
According to the i24NEWS, Commercial flights between Israel and the UAE began shortly after the signing of the Abraham Accords which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain with Morocco and Sudan later joining the historic deal.