Jordanian travel agents are selling tickets for a second Royal Jordanian flight scheduled to leave Thursday to Iraq and another is expected to take place on Monday, a tour operator told AFP Wednesday.
"Tickets were sold for a flight due to leave Amman for Baghdad on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. (1600 GMT)," the travel agent who declined to be identified told AFP.
The flight will be served by a Royal Jordanian Airbus A 310 and another is expected to take off Monday at noon (1000 GMT) for Baghdad from Amman, the agent added.
A one-way ticket costs 115 dinars (164 dollars) while the round-trip is priced at 220 dinars (314 dollars), he added.
Bookings for Thursday's flight had to be made two days in advance and passengers had to provide the travel agency with their full name, including the father's and grandfather's name as is the custom in Arab countries.
They also had to give their profession in order to obtain UN clearance, he said.
But the agent stressed the Thursday flight was listed as a "weekly affair", adding that "things could change next week".
On November 30, a Thursday, a Royal Jordanian airplane became the first commercial flight to travel from Jordan to Iraq in more than 10 years.
It carried to Baghdad 29 passengers, including a number of Jordanian journalists and businessmen, and returned the following morning with 45 passengers including a number of "sick Iraqis" to be admitted to Amman hospitals.
Iraq has been under economic sanctions, including a ban on regular flights, since it invaded Kuwait in August 1990.
Given the humanitarian overtones of the flight, a Royal Jordanian executive said the company should be able to organize further weekly flights along the same lines.
"This kind of flight can be considered as semi-commercial," he said last week – BAGHDAD (AFP)
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