Palestinian Airlines Returns to the Air after Seven Year Grounding

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Palestinian Airlines has resumed its schedule of two flights per week on two 48-seat Fokker 50 turboprop airplanes after having been grounded for more than seven years. The carrier was launched from the Gaza airport after the implementation of the Oslo Accords in the late 1990s and was seen as a major image-booster for the would-be Palestinian state before the violence of the Intifada grounded it planes. The airline is now based in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula town of El Arish from where it flies to and from Amman aboard the two aircraft originally donated by the Netherlands. The carrier is owned by the Palestinian Authority even though its passenger base is primarily Gazans who live under Hamas control. Flights to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Gulf States are in the planning stages. Israel has not given permission to over-fly its airspace.