Qatar Airways seeks compensation for lost airspace gain access to from four Middle East countries
Qatar Airways can seek compensation from four Arab neighbors who've refused to permit it to work with their airspace under the terms of a boycott today in place for over three years, the airline announced on July 16.
The International Courtroom of Justice (ICJ) ruled on July 14 that the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) was competent to hear the dispute, after the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt argued that the body’s aviation-only remit left it ineligible to select “security” matters.
“Good ruling of the ICJ and the legal precedent allowing the Point out of Qatar to keep its case at ICAO against the blockading Claims, Qatar Airways will pursue its case for appropriate compensation of the financial injuries inflicted… therefore of the illegal airspace blockade,” the airline explained on July 16.
“The arbitrary and abusive measures these four States have taken against us have devastated our carefully planned decades-longer program for investment and growth in those countries; they have arbitrarily avoided us from serving hundreds of thousands of passengers, and transporting thousands of tons of cargo to and from each one of these countries annually,” it added.
The quartet, along with six additional Arab nations, abruptly imposed a boycott on Qatar in June 2017, over its alleged links to terrorist groups, an allegation Qatar strongly denies.
In line with the Saudi Press Organization, the UAE filed a formal complaint with ICAO in 2018 after “repeated incidents where Qatari fighter jets intercepted Emirati civilian aircraft during [scheduled flights]”.
The two sides’ increasingly shrill denunciations of the other person in recent months, with progressively more certain claims of rectitude and self-justification, have underlined the increasing intractability of the dispute, after resolution appeared possible late this past year. The ICAO Council expects at hand down its judgment subsequent year, but any decision will unlikely to keep Qatar Airways any longer able to use its neighbors’ airspace.
On flights to points east and south of Doha, the airline has already established to create minor detours over the Strait of Hormuz in order to avoid UAE airspace, involving what it regards unnecessary time and expense, as the inability to fly more than Saudi Arabia complicates Qatari usage of Africa. The ban on flights to Saudi Arabia and the UAE possesses resulted in erosion of considerable marketplace show from the region’s visiting public.
In reiterating Qatar’s victory prior to the ICJ, Al Baker said that three members of the quartet were ineligible to take a seat on the ICAO Council, which operates beneath the rules of the 1944 Chicago Convention.
“ICAO may be the custodian of the Chicago Convention and the only UN organization responsible for implementing the convention,” it said in a declaration. “This illegal work of the four states is unlike the Chicago Convention: three of the four countries involved are seated on the ICAO council and should be recused.”
In June, the World Trade Organisation ruled that Saudi TV station, beoutQ, had illegally disseminated content material owned by Qatari sports channel, beIN Group, a judgment threatening the Saudi government’s plan to take over an English soccer club. Saudi Arabia claimed the ruling upheld its location.
Qatar’s intent to launch legal action could involve vast sums, if not billions, of dollars and may likely stay in the courts for years. “Qatar Airways will pursue all obtainable legal remedies to secure full compensation to protect our privileges and the privileges of our clients,” the airline concluded.
