The first-ever commercial flight between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi will take off next Monday carrying an Israeli delegation led by head of the National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat. The flight, probably operated by El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (TASE: ELAL), will also carry a US delegation headed by US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and US special representative for international negotiations Avi Berkowitz.
The delegations will hold talks in Abu Dhabi on the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE.
The US announced that the flight taking the delegations between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi will be a commercial flight. It is unclear which carrier will be charged with operating the flight but El Al is the only Israeli airline with wide-bodied passenger aircraft capable of taking such distinguished people and it will need to end the grounding of its fleet due to the Covid-19 pandemic in order to carry out the mission.
The negotiations in Abu Dhabi will focus on promoting cooperation in a range of areas including aviation and tourism, trade, economics and finance, health, energy, and defense. Other members of the Israeli delegation will include Prime Minister's Office deputy director general Ronen Peretz, who will lead the economic talks as well as Ministry of Foreign Affairs director general Alon Ushpiz, Ministry of Defense director general Amir Eshel and Civil Aviation Authority head Joel Feldsho.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "This is an historic agreement. It will bring engines for growth. It can help bring about an overall flourishing of the economy during the coronavirus period and I hope that additional countries in our region will join the circle of peace."
Yesterday afternoon Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz spoke with his UAE counterpart Mohammed bin Ahmad al Barwadi to discuss security cooperation between the two countries.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on August 26, 2020 © Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2020