Next week, Israel and Jordan will sign an agreement for mutual recognition of the handling and maintenance of civilian aircraft in the two countries’ maintenance facilities. Under the agreement, Jordanian companies may perform maintenance on the passenger planes of Israeli airlines, at infrastructures in Jordan, and the Bedek Aviation Group of Israel Aircraft Industries, and El-Al, will be licensed to perform maintenance on the planes of the Royal Jordanian Airline.
A Jordanian mission, led by head of aviation administration Jihad Irshid, will come to Israel at the beginning of next week. Jordan will demand greater frequency of flights and passenger capacity for the national airline on the Israel line, in excess of the 450 passengers it is currently permitted to fly each week.
Israel will demand permission for Arkia and Israir aircraft to use a flight lane within Jordanian airspace, while en route to Eilat. There have recently been an increasing number of incidents in which air crashes almost occurred on flights to Eilat, due to crowding in Israel's airspace. The Jordanian lane, known as the "Eastern lane", runs parallel to the lane passing through Israel's airspace.
The Israeli team in these talks will be headed by Civil Aviation Administration chief Avner Yarkoni, together with representatives of El-Al, Israeli Air Force, the Airports Authority and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Israel and Jordan recently started co-operating in preparations for Bug-2000, and will discuss ways of coping with a possible crash of computer systems in control authorities and aircraft.
Published by Israel's Business Arena July 7, 1999