Qatar Airways said Thursday it had started restarting a number of its flights through Saudi airspace, for the first time since June 2017.
The company confirmed in a tweet on Twitter that "the first plane belonging to it will cross Saudi airspace is the QR1365 flight from Doha to Johannesburg at 10:45 pm today, Thursday."
Qatar Airways began restarting a number of its flights across Saudi airspace, with the first scheduled flight QR1365 operating from Doha to Johannesburg at 20.45 pm this day, January 7 pic.twitter.com/yR6vRE1w2o
- Qatar Airways (@qatarairwaysar) January 7, 2021
On Monday, Saudi Arabia announced the reopening of its airspace and its sea and land ports with Qatar, one day before a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council held in the Saudi city of Al-Ula with the participation of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
The summit resulted in the signing of a reconciliation agreement that ended the blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt on Doha, and lasted for more than 3 and a half years.
On Wednesday, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan announced that the agreement provides for a complete restoration of relations between the four countries with Qatar.
And over the years of the blockade, Qatar Airways was forced to direct most of its flights to Iranian airspace.