Gerald Butt/NICOSIA
Iraqi Airways announced on 12 February that it was to restart regular flights from Baghdad to Damascus and on the same day flew a Boeing 747SP to the Syrian capital. Among the seven passengers was Iraqi trade minister Ahmad Murtada Ahmad, who says that a return service would be operated twice weekly.
The 747SP later returned to Saddam International Airport with passengers from Syria. While Iraq insists that the service - in clear breach of UN sanctions against it - will be regular, the Syrian Government is distancing itself from this suggestion. "There is no timetable," says a senior aviation official in Damascus, "and no schedule".
The recent arrival in Damascus of the 747SP, which was donated to Iraq by Sheikh Hamad bin Ali al-Thani, head of Sharjah-based Air Gulf Falcon (and not by Qatar as suggested in Flight International, 16-22 January, was a further attempt by the Baghdad government to challenge UN sanctions. Last November, Iraqi Airways restarted internal services, and while a handful of flights have been operated to Saudi Arabia, carrying Muslim pilgrims, this is the first time since sanctions were imposed in 1990 that the Iraqi carrier has operated what appears to be a commercial service abroad.
Any expansion of the limited services offered by the Iraqi carrier will be restricted by its aircraft shortage. The airline's operational fleet consists of nine aircraft - one Ilyushin Il-76, one Antonov An-26 and seven helicopters, the latter being withdrawn from flying passenger services on internal routes due to safety reasons.
Source: Flight International
