Italy has withdrawn a decade-long ban on Libyan civil aviation using Italian airspace. According to the Libyan government, air flights are scheduled to resume from September.
At present, there are few airlines working flights in and out of Libya. A country that has experienced hardship, chaos and conflict for over a decade after Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall in 2011.
Giorgia Meloni, Italian Prime Minister had informed her Libyan counterpart Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah of this decision on Sunday, July 9
The decision was made after a meeting between the Libyan and Italian officials and after technical teams from both sides, had debated the results of a field visit in May. The field visit had been to check safety procedures at Libyan airports.
Prior to this announcement, air flights out of Libya had long been confined to destinations such as Tunisia, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan. The European Union had banned Libyan civil aviation from its airspace.
Now, the Libyan and Italian authorities have both agreed that flights would be handled by one carrier from each of the countries.
