Gerald Butt/NICOSIA
Iraqi Airways is to restart internal flights on 5 November linking Iraq's capital, Baghdad, with Basra in the south and Mosul in the north, after an eight-year break.
Airline chairman, Iyad Hamam, says that one return flight a day will operate to each city for the first week, "with the option of expanding the service if the demand is sufficient." Single fares are priced at Iraqi dinars (ID) 12,500 to Basra and ID 10,000 to Mosul - about $10.75 and $10.00, respectively, at current exchange rates.
Most of Iraqi Airways' fleet has been grounded at airports outside the country since Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the Gulf war in 1991. Hamam says the airline's operational fleet "consists of nine aircraft: one Ilyushin Il-76, one Antonov An-26 and seven helicopters - Pumas and Mi-17s".
The Iraqi authorities have recently refurbished Saddam International Airport in Baghdad, along with the airports at Basra and Mosul, repairing damage caused to passenger terminals and radio and navigation equipment during the Gulf war.
Internal flights were stopped in mid-1992 after the USA, UK and France imposed no-fly zones in the north and south of the country. But UN officials in New York indicated on 30 October that the resumption of civilian flights to Basra and Mosul in the two zones would not conflict with the Security Council's air embargo on Iraq. Over recent years, Iraqi Airways has operated a handful of flights with its Il-76 through the southern exclusion zone without seeking advance approval, taking Muslim pilgrims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
The number of countries ignoring the UN embargo on flights to Iraq increased sharply ahead of the start of an international trade fairin Baghdad in the first week of November. On 1 November, the prime minister of Jordan, Ali Abu Ragheb, arrived in the Iraqi capital in a Royal Jordanian aircraft - the most senior official from the international community to challenge the UN ban. The previous day, seven foreign aircraft landed at Saddam International Airport - from Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Lebanon, plus three from Russia.
Source: Flight International
