First official EgyptAir flight lands at Israel airport

Jerusalem, Israel | Xinhua | A first-ever commercial flight of Egypt’s flagship carrier EgyptAir landed in Israel on Sunday after taking off from Cairo, according to a report by Israel’s state-owned Kan TV news.

EgyptAir’s new route will include four weekly round-trip flights between Cairo International Airport and Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv, Kan added.

Egypt and Israel signed a historic peace treaty in 1979, and direct flights between the two countries began a year later by Israel’s leading airline El Al.

EgyptAir, on the other hand, preferred for political reasons not to fly to Israel, and established a subsidiary Air Sinai in 1982, which has since operated direct flights between the two countries.

In 2012, El Al stopped flying to Cairo for economic reasons, after the number of passengers traveling between the two countries sharply decreased.

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Xinhua