Israel's national air carrier El Al filed petition with the High Court of Justice on Wednesday against Air India's new route through Saudi airspace on its New Delhi-Tel Aviv flights, a move the Israeli airline says puts it at an unfair disadvantage.
El Al claims that when it was privatized back in the 1990s, the Israeli government pledged to "encourage fair and healthy competition" between Israeli airlines and their foreign competitors. This promise is now being broken, El Al said.
Saudi Arabia and Israel have no diplomatic ties, and as such, the Israeli airline must circumvent Saudi airspace, making flights to India, for example, significantly longer.
The kingdom's decision to allow the Indian carrier to fly through its airspace en route to Tel Aviv reflected a recent, behind-the-scenes warming of ties between the two countries.
But El Al says it has been harmed as a result. It currently operates the only flights connecting Mumbai to Tel Aviv, but with the Air India route it finds itself unable to compete with the shorter and cheaper flights.
El Al is asking that the Air India flights be halted until Israeli airlines are also allowed to fly over Saudi Arabia. The suit also names Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz and Air India.
The Israeli government has lauded the new Air India route, between New Delhi and Tel Aviv, as a symbol of the tightening relations between the two countries as well as proof of Israel's improving status in the region. Israel says it has seen a 33% uptick this year in incoming tourism from India.
Netanyahu has predicted "huge" potential for Israel from the flights over Saudi airspace with "long-term" benefits.
"We ask that it stops here," El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin told Israel Hayom. "The permit granted by Saudi Arabia to Air India could become a precedent for additional permits for other foreign airlines to fly over the Saudi Arabia, in routes that are significantly shorter compared to Israeli airlines."
The air carrier's Chairman of the Board, Eli Defes, said the permission granted to Air India "contradicts the Chicago Convention [on International Civil Aviation], of which Israel is a signatory."
"The convention outlines nations' rights to bar flights from taking place over certain routes for reasons of security or public safety as long as said restrictions do not discriminate between nations," he explained.
A statement by the Transportation Ministry said that "it is the government's responsibility to make sure El Al's operations do not suffer."
