Syrian Airlines resumes its flights to Saudi Arabia after 12 years of stopping

Syrian Airlines resumed its regular flights to Saudi Arabia for the first time in more than 12 years, and one of its planes arrived at Riyadh Airport on Wednesday morning.

Agence France-Presse quoted the Syrian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ayman Soussan, as saying that the Syrian Airlines plane arrived at 6:30 am on Wednesday, Riyadh time, with 170 Syrian passengers on board, adding that the two countries agreed to operate one round-trip flight per week between Riyadh and Damascus.

This comes a few weeks after the arrival of the first flight carrying pilgrims from Damascus to Jeddah in western Saudi Arabia, the gateway to the holy places in Mecca, for the first time in more than 12 years.

The Director of the Media Office at the Syrian Ministry of Transport, Suleiman Khalil, confirmed, “The possibility of increasing Saudi airports in front of Syrian aviation to include Jeddah and Dammam airports, “according to demand, need, and the market.”

It is not yet possible to know whether Saudi airlines will also resume their flights to Damascus.

It is noteworthy that Saudi Arabia, like other Gulf countries, severed its diplomatic relations with the Syrian regime and closed its embassies in 2012, in protest against the use of force to suppress the popular protests that broke out in 2011.

Riyadh announced in March 2023 that it was holding discussions regarding the resumption of consular services between the two countries. In May of the same year, it announced the resumption of the work of its diplomatic mission in Syria, an indication of an end to the rift.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also attended the Arab Summit in Riyadh in the same month, for the first time after an absence of 13 years, while the foreign ministers of the two countries have met several times since then.

Damascus appointed an ambassador to Riyadh and he began his work last December, while Riyadh sent a chargé d'affaires who began his work in Damascus at the beginning of this year, before naming an ambassador to Damascus last May.

(French)