Israel is working on a direct airline route from Israel to Dubai that will fly through Saudi air space, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, while visiting Benurion International Airport with Transportation Minister Miri Regev.
"The flight will take some three hours. This is a revolution for tourism to and from Israel," Netanyahu said, and added "The quality of life in Israel will cost less because we will be able to import more goods."
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
Over the weekend, following Thursday's historic announcement that Israel and the United Arab Emirates had agreed to normalize relations, a high-ranking Emirati official told Israel Hayom that "In three to five months, holders of an Israeli passport will be able to visit the UAE. The flights from Tel Aviv to Dubai and from Dubai to Tel Aviv will go over Saudi Arabia."
"Israel has submitted an official request to fly to Dubai, and now we need to finalize agreements with all the authorities," Regev said Monday.
In other travel news, a list of 21 countries listed "green" due to their successful handling of the coronavirus crisis and are willing to accept Israeli visitors was published. Visitors to these countries will not have to quarantine themselves upon their return to Israel. On Monday, the first flight to Greece from Tel Aviv to depart after the list was announced took off, but approximately 20 of the passengers who had purchased tickets were not allowed to fly because of problems with their coronavirus tests.
Regev said that Israel was trying to convince additional countries to accept Israeli tourists, and was working with Cyprus and Georgia on the matter.
The transportation minister addressed the situation of Israeli airline Arkia, all of whose employees have been furloughed: "Arkia, pitch in and start flying again. Israir has been flying the entire time, and kept up its Eilat route. El Al has become Israel's national cargo carrier, and I believe that El Al will bring its workers back as soon as possible," Regev said.
Also on Monday, the Knesset State Control Committee held a meeting on a future of the aviation sector following the coronavirus crisis. The committee was informed that on Sunday, 5,000 travelers had departed from Ben-Gurion International Airport. Committee members were also informed that Greece had limited Israeli arrivals to 600 airline passengers per week and that Sinai was turning into a coronavirus hotspot.
Soon, the government is expected to publish new guidelines for business trips to "red" countries, and for groups of incoming tourists.
Committee chairman MK Ofer Shelach said that "Opening the skies is vital to the business and leisure world in Israel. We must transition to a world that will focus on individual travelers, with the ability to test and isolate carriers and release healthy people. Coronavirus will be with us for a long time. It demands that we create conditions for safe flights for individual passengers, and soon."
Deputy Director General of the Health Ministry Professor Itamar Grotto said at the meeting: "It has been decided that even if the status of countries that Israelis fly to now changes, it will keep the previous designation until they return, so they can go back to work and their homes. The Health Ministry is using all the tools at its disposal to develop rapid tests and test multiple kits at once, which will speed up the process of receiving results. This could be effective at the airport, for example."
Head of the International Relations Department of the Health Ministry Dr. Asher Salmon told the committee that "most developed western countries don't see testing as a replacement for quarantine. In the past few months, we've been in touch with over 10 countries about a mutual open door policy. It came to a halt because we were downgraded from green to red. We'll need to drop to the standards of the European Union, with a number of new cases per day at under 200. We're far from that."
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
