Global airlines stopped flying over Libya back in 2014 amid intense fighting across the country.
Direct flights between Qatar and Libya are expected to resume this month following more than a decade-long hiatus, Mohammed Al-Shahoubi, the transport minister of Libya’s Government of National Unity (GNU), announced on Monday.
The Libyan official made the announcement following a meeting with Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Al Dbeibah, according to Tripoli’s news agency (LANA).
Al-Shahoubi confirmed that the flights are scheduled to return with Qatar Airways and Royal Jordanian, with talks ongoing with Saudi Arabia over the resumption of flights to the country.
“The meeting came to follow up on a number of files related to civil aviation and air transport, and the Airports Authority’s plan to activate local airports, provide the necessary equipment for them, and follow up on the executive procedures of the Civil Aviation Authority regarding opening new international destinations,” LANA reported.
The announcement came weeks after Qatar and Libya agreed to update an air services agreement on April 21 with the presence of Qatar’s Minister of Transport Jassim Al-Sulaiti. The two countries initially signed the agreement on April 28, 2004.
Both sides also signed a memorandum of understanding allowing their national carriers to operate an unlimited number of weekly passenger and cargo flights.
“The agreement update and the MoU come in the context of connecting Qatar with more air services agreements, allowing the Qatari national carrier to expand its network and fly to more destinations worldwide,” the Qatari minister of transports said in a statement at the time.
Last October, aviation officials from Qatar and Libya held similar discussions which resulted in one MoU for cooperation in civil aviation and “operating joint cooperation channels in the field of air traffic.”
Global airlines stopped flying over Libya back in 2014 amid intense fighting across the country. Instead, travellers were forced to transit through Tunisia, Turkiye or Egypt.
By 2019, warlord General Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi launched a military campaign to capture control of the capital city of Tripoli, which is under the rule of the United Nations-recognised GNU government.
The GNA, backed by Turkish forces, later managed to reclaim the capital in 2020 following intense fighting against Haftar, who was backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Russia.
The war became widely known as “The Battle for Tripoli”.
Libya is still divided between the rival administrations in Tripoli and the eastern side, controlled by the Benghazi-based House of Representatives.
The country has yet to recover following the overthrow of long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi amid mass pro-democracy protests in 2011, with periodic clashes occurring between different groups.
The stalemate in Libya’s political progress prompted the UN’s envoy to the country, Abdoulaye Bathily, to resign last month. Bathily came to office after the resignation of his predecessor Jan Kubis in 2021, less than a year after he assumed his role.
“Under the circumstances, there is no way the UN can operate successfully,” he said, adding that “there is no room for a solution in the future.”
Presidential and parliamentary elections have been delayed numerous times since 2014.
