EgyptAir flight lands in Tel Aviv for first time in decades

Ahram Online , Sunday 3 Oct 2021

An EgyptAir aircraft touched down at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport on Sunday for the first time in decades, Israeli media reported.

 EgyptAir
File photo: Airport staff walk next to an Egyptair aircraft after it landed on the runway at Cairo Airport, Egypt. Reuters

The flight was welcomed with a water cannon salute to mark the occasion, the Jerusalem Post said.

Since the 1980s, the only flights between Israel and Cairo had been operated by Air Sinai, a subsidiary of EgyptAir, which operated flights using flagless aircrafts.

According to the Egyptian flagship carrier’s flight schedule, EgyptAir will operate four weekly direct flights from Cairo to Tel Aviv as of October.

The ticket prices range from EGP 4,500 (around $285.7) to EGP 4,900 ($311) for one-way flights, which take around 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Sunday’s flight comes almost two weeks after the newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made his first visit to Egypt, meeting Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi’s in the Red Sea resort city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

Bennett’s visit was also the first visit by an Israeli prime minister in general to Egypt since 2011.

El-Sisi and Bennett’s meeting tackled the latest developments concerning the peace process in the Middle East.

President El-Sisi asserted Egypt’s support for all efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East based on the two-state solution and international resolutions in a way that contributes to ensuring security and prosperity in the region.

According to the Israeli PM’s office’s statement on the meeting, Bennett stated that the Egyptian role “is important in the region” and that after four decades, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty remains a cornerstone of security and stability in the region.

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