Air Scotland to offer Stansted - Baghdad flights
09.05.05
Air Scotland, a tiny budget airline which only started two years ago, will steal a march on British Airways and other major carriers by starting direct flights from London to Baghdad in November. The flight will be the first service between the two cities since BA withdrew the route in 1990.
The airline currently flies between Scotland and popular tourist destinations, including Paris, Greece and Spain. Like most budget airlines, it has major expansion ambitions. Earlier this year it had applied to aviation authorities for permission to fly from Scotland to Miami, New York, Havana and Toronto. Now it plans to add the London - Baghdad route starting this November.
The airlines founder, Iraqi-born Dhia Al-Ani, said of the plans: 'We obviously won't be flying through hails of bullets and missiles and giving parachutes to passengers, but I'm very hopeful the situation will be much calmer by November. Already there are flights going into Baghdad from Jordan and Dubai with no problems. The only tricky bit is getting to the airport.'
Mr Al-Ani expects particularly strong demand for the twice-weekly flights, which will start in Glasgow Airport, land at Stansted, then continuing direct to Iraq. Even if the security situation hasn't improved in Baghdad, Mr Al-Ani said that Air Scotland would press ahead with flights to the northern Iraqi city of Arbil instead.
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