Pure civil av question, no politics please ...

Now then, I always wondered how El Al flights to Asia that must navigate around Saudi Arabia are handled. Does Saudi/Yemeni/Djibouti ATC talk to El Al flights ? and is there a fixed international airway that El Al follows over the Bab al-Mandab Strait ? Its an awfully thin needle to thread, do the El Al flights have to fly dead middle or are they given a track by local ATC that may technically transit thru Saudi or Djibouti airspace ?

Just wondering, thanks.

Can’t they just fly over Turkey ?

My understanding is they do for Beijing and Seoul, but for Mumbai and Bangkok its faster to go south and across Gulf of Aden ...

Flight paths certainly seems to show they fly right down the middle of the Red sea until they reach Eritrea and then crossover into Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia airspace before crossing the Arabian sea. Particularly seems to avoid Sudan and Yemen airspace.

They don't talk to ATC at all, but obviously they are under radar control for separation with other traffics, I think they broadcast the position in 126,9 Mhz using the IFBP method.

Yemen airspace is currently close over the land part of Yemen for all civil traffic, and I think Turkey and Egypt are the one of the few Muslim countries that allow El Al planes in their airspace.

migair54 wrote:

They don't talk to ATC at all, but obviously they are under radar control for separation with other traffics, I think they broadcast the position in 126,9 Mhz using the IFBP method.

Yemen airspace is currently close over the land part of Yemen for all civil traffic, and I think Turkey and Egypt are the one of the few Muslim countries that allow El Al planes in their airspace.

Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Azerbaijan are the four Muslim countries that recognize Israel (and thus, let LY fly over their airspace) from top of my head. Jordanian airspace is only good for flight to and from AMM, though, and I think the airspace over Sinai peninsula is avoided right now. But flights over to China and Japan certain goes through Turkey, turn east towards the Caucasus countries (including Azerbaijan), over Caspian then the stans before entering Chinese airsapce.

zakuivcustom wrote:

migair54 wrote:

They don't talk to ATC at all, but obviously they are under radar control for separation with other traffics, I think they broadcast the position in 126,9 Mhz using the IFBP method.

Yemen airspace is currently close over the land part of Yemen for all civil traffic, and I think Turkey and Egypt are the one of the few Muslim countries that allow El Al planes in their airspace.

Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Azerbaijan are the four Muslim countries that recognize Israel (and thus, let LY fly over their airspace) from top of my head. Jordanian airspace is only good for flight to and from AMM, though, and I think the airspace over Sinai peninsula is avoided right now. But flights over to China and Japan certain goes through Turkey, turn east towards the Caucasus countries (including Azerbaijan), over Caspian then the stans before entering Chinese airsapce.

Not intending to be fastidious, but you contradict yourself. You name the 4 muslim countries, and then mention that LY overfly the stans...

Aren't the Stans technically secular, just with a majority Muslim population? The same would apply for Turkey I guess using that reasoning.

I think the HK flight, does the same down the middle of he Red Sea then carries on.

aa87 wrote:

My understanding is they do for Beijing and Seoul, but for Mumbai and Bangkok its faster to go south and across Gulf of Aden ...

Correct, as Iran and Pakistan also prohibit Israeli overflight, which would make the northern routing to India and Thailand difficult.

hz747300 wrote:

Aren't the Stans technically secular, just with a majority Muslim population? The same would apply for Turkey I guess using that reasoning.

I think the HK flight, does the same down the middle of he Red Sea then carries on.

The classification of what is and isn’t a Muslim country is a bit dicey in that regard, as there are Muslim majority countries that do allow Israeli planes to overfly. LY used to fly to ALA in Kazakhstan and TAS in Uzbekistan, for example, and Israeli heritage tourism in Morocco is big business at the moment, even though there is no direct air service between them.

I can’t find a list of countries that do and don’t allow Israeli overflight, but the list of countries that do not accept Israeli passports would seem to be a good start: Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, UAE, Yemen.

MalevTU134 wrote:

zakuivcustom wrote:

migair54 wrote:

They don't talk to ATC at all, but obviously they are under radar control for separation with other traffics, I think they broadcast the position in 126,9 Mhz using the IFBP method.

Yemen airspace is currently close over the land part of Yemen for all civil traffic, and I think Turkey and Egypt are the one of the few Muslim countries that allow El Al planes in their airspace.

Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Azerbaijan are the four Muslim countries that recognize Israel (and thus, let LY fly over their airspace) from top of my head. Jordanian airspace is only good for flight to and from AMM, though, and I think the airspace over Sinai peninsula is avoided right now. But flights over to China and Japan certain goes through Turkey, turn east towards the Caucasus countries (including Azerbaijan), over Caspian then the stans before entering Chinese airsapce.

Not intending to be fastidious, but you contradict yourself. You name the 4 muslim countries, and then mention that LY overfly the stans...

Well, technically the "stans" are secular. Although I did contradict myself since I listed Azerbaijan, which is also a secular country (albeit with a Muslim majority).

Turkey is technically a secular country also, so there's that.

I think the HK flight, does the same down the middle of he Red Sea then carries on.

Looking at Flightaware, both the CX and the LY flights between HKG and TLV go through the "northern" route (i.e. Turkey -> Caucasus -> "Stans" -> China).

The only other route that go through the Red Sea would be to JNB, fly down Red Sea to the Sudan-Eritrea border, then go south across Eritrea and the Eastern African countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, etc.) to JNB.

The classification of what is and isn’t a Muslim country is a bit dicey in that regard, as there are Muslim majority countries that do allow Israeli planes to overfly. LY used to fly to ALA in Kazakhstan and TAS in Uzbekistan, for example, and Israeli heritage tourism in Morocco is big business at the moment, even though there is no direct air service between them.

And HY (Uzbekistan Airways) still fly between TLV and TAS. No KC (Air Astana) service to TLV, though .

hkcanadaexpat wrote:

Flight paths certainly seems to show they fly right down the middle of the Red sea until they reach Eritrea and then crossover into Eritrea, Djibouti and Somalia airspace before crossing the Arabian sea. Particularly seems to avoid Sudan and Yemen airspace.

.

Thanks - not sure where you're looking, but flightaware/flightradar24 notoriously inaccurate in showing these flight paths. They often show them transiting Saudia Arabia which they clearly do not do. Are you sure they transit Djibouti ? If so that's interesting bc it would make Djibouti the only country, I believe, with no diplomatic relations with Israel that still allows LY airspace transit rights.

I don't think LY transit Somalia at any time, Eritrea is not a muslim country and therefore is good candidate to have relationship with Israel, if not good at least not bad like some most Muslim countries.

HKG route only pass Turkey, Georgia and Kazakhastan and China, no other stan.

Personally I think flightradar24 is much more accurate than flightaware, at least when they have no data from the plane they make a different path line so you know that area was out of coverage.

aa87 wrote:

My understanding is they do for Beijing and Seoul, but for Mumbai and Bangkok its faster to go south and across Gulf of Aden ...

El Al doesn't serve Seoul, but Korean Air does from TLV.

NichCage wrote:

aa87 wrote:

My understanding is they do for Beijing and Seoul, but for Mumbai and Bangkok its faster to go south and across Gulf of Aden ...

El Al doesn't serve Seoul, but Korean Air does from TLV.

They used to, I forgot they stopped. Which raises this question in reverse. Do Korean Air and Cathay flights to TLV have to avoid LY banned air space too eg Iran and Saudi’s Arabia ?

aa87 wrote:

NichCage wrote:

aa87 wrote:

My understanding is they do for Beijing and Seoul, but for Mumbai and Bangkok its faster to go south and across Gulf of Aden ...

El Al doesn't serve Seoul, but Korean Air does from TLV.

They used to, I forgot they stopped. Which raises this question in reverse. Do Korean Air and Cathay flights to TLV have to avoid LY banned air space too eg Iran and Saudi’s Arabia ?

Of course they do. Both CX and KE have to avoid all Muslim countries except Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, which allow Israel flights over there airspace because they recognize them. CX takes the same path as LY and KE flies the same way as well.

NichCage wrote:

aa87 wrote:

NichCage wrote:

El Al doesn't serve Seoul, but Korean Air does from TLV.

They used to, I forgot they stopped. Which raises this question in reverse. Do Korean Air and Cathay flights to TLV have to avoid LY banned air space too eg Iran and Saudi’s Arabia ?

Of course they do. Both CX and KE have to avoid all Muslim countries except Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, which allow Israel flights over there airspace because they recognize them. CX takes the same path as LY and KE flies the same way as well.

Georgian will kill you for calling them a Muslim country (In fact, it's a Eastern Orthodox country to the point that Georgian Orthodox Church has a special place in the Georgian constitution, just slightly short of a "state church").

HKG route only pass Turkey, Georgia and Kazakhastan and China, no other stan.

Random search on FR24 suggest that HKG->TLV usually fly over China, Kazakhstan, Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, then down Mediterranean coast outside Lebanon to TLV. TLV->HKG usually fly up Turkey, turn across Georgia and Azerbaijan, then through a more southernly route across Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan before entering China.

So it does passed through other "stans" that's not Kazakhstan.

I don't think LY transit Somalia at any time, Eritrea is not a muslim country and therefore is good candidate to have relationship with Israel, if not good at least not bad like some most Muslim countries.

Eritrea and Israel has a pretty good relation with each other in actuality, although sometimes that irates Ethiopia (Which also has a pretty good relation with Israel, especially with the historical Ethiopian Jews) quite a bit (Eritrea and Ethiopia...well, let's just say they're not exactly friends).

Thanx for all the replies. So does anyone know if LY actually transits Djibouti airspace ? Very curious about that.

[twoid][/twoid]

aa87 wrote:

Thanx for all the replies. So does anyone know if LY actually transits Djibouti airspace ? Very curious about that.

I dug into the a.net archives and came up with this gem: Djibouti does not control its airspace, Ethiopia does, so, yes, LY can overfly Djibouti. LY’s flights to NBO and JNB turn south over Djibouti and Ethiopia toward Kenya. LY talks to Egyptian and Eritrean FIR en route.

There’s some interesting stuff from a guy who used to work Red Sea control about how KSA would communicate with LY if they needed to: viewtopic.php?t=607867

Speaking of African flight, when I look at ET's TLV-ADD flight, at least on both Flightaware and FR24 it's showing that it fly over both Egypt and Sudan then down to ADD instead of through Red Sea.

Knowing Sudan doesn't recognized Israel, maybe there are other rules going on when it's not El Al?

A good history of El Al's Red Sea route starts on p 148 https://www.amazon.com/Airspace-Closure ... 1472413008