Air India will begin direct flights to Tel Aviv, flying over Saudi airspace, on Thursday. The new route will take approximately seven hours, saving two hours off the current average direct flight time main by El Al.
El Al, Israel’s national airline, has to avoid Saudi airspace by flying over the Red Sea, past Yemen and around the Arabian Peninsula since Saudi airspace was closed to any airline that flies to Israel. El Al has asked the International Civil Aviation Authority to intervene to convince Saudi Arabia to allow the airline also to fly over its airspace between India and Israel.