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Jordan airline resumes flights to Iraq

by Reuters
Sunday, 3 August 2014 18:55 GMT

AMMAN, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Royal Jordanian, one of the main airlines serving Iraq, said on Sunday it had resumed flights to Iraq after a 24-hour suspension due to security concerns.

The airline did not elaborate in its statement on why it reversed the decision it took on Saturday to halt flights to Iraq until further notice.

Royal Jordanian has a weekly total of 30 flights to Iraq, serving Baghdad 11 times a week, as well as Basra in the south, and Irbil and Sulaymaniya in the Kurdish north.

It stopped its twice-weekly flights to Mosul shortly after the northern city fell in June to the Islamic State militant group.

Major airlines are taking differing stances on flying over Iraq, with several major operators now avoiding its airspace, reflecting the piecemeal approach airlines currently take to flying over conflict zones.

Iraq is under the flight path from Asia to Europe, raising security fears for airline operators of attacks similar to the one last month on the Malaysian jetliner over a rebel-held area of eastern Ukraine.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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