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First Qatar to Saudi flight takes off after thaw

DOHA: Qatar-Saudi flights resumed on Monday as the neighbors normalize ties under a landmark agreement that ended a bitter three-year rift and allows families to reunite.
The quartet agreed to lift the restrictions at a Gulf Cooperation Council summit last week in the Saudi desert city of Al-Ula, after a flurry of diplomatic activity by outgoing US President Donald Trump’s administration.
The first commercial flight between Qatar and Saudi Arabia in three and a half years, a Qatar Airways service to Riyadh, took off from windswept Doha airport around 1100 GMT and was due to touch down at 1210 GMT.
Airport staff filmed aircraft taxiing on the runway in anticipation of the departure, according to an AFP correspondent on the ground.
Economy tickets for flight QR1164 aboard an Airbus A350 were on sale for around $650 one way to cover the roughly 600 kilometres (370 miles) between the neighbours’ capitals.
A Saudia Airlines plane will also fly Monday from Riyadh to Doha, departing the kingdom at 1340 GMT according to its online schedule, with services from Jeddah expected to start at a later date.
Just as the first flight to Riyadh was preparing to take off, Qatar Airways tweeted that services to Jeddah and Dammam would resume later in the week.
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have both opened their airspace to Qatari aviation under the deal but there has been no word on when the first direct flights will take off.

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M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.