Yemen Airlines Resumes Pilgrimage Flights Amid Fragile Ceasefire

From May 28, forty-four flights carrying 8,200 pilgrims will operate from Yemen's Sanaa International Airport to Saudi Arabia's Jeddah. Previously limited flights to Jordan resumed after a UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022. The airport had been closed for nearly a decade due to conflict between a Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi group.

Forty-four flights carrying a combined 8,200 pilgrims from Yemen's Sanaa International Airport to Saudi Arabia's Jeddah will start operating from May 28, three sources from Yemen's government and the Yemeni Houthi group told Reuters.

Flights from Sanaa airport are limited to one near-daily service to Jordan since a U.N.-brokered ceasefire in Yemen that took effect in April 2022. Last September the commercial Jordan flights were suspended but in October the national airline resumed them, after a row between the country's warring parties over control of the carrier's funds.

Prior to April 2022 the airport had been closed due to nearly a decade of war between a Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi group that now controls most of the country.