“KLM uses a security management system to analyze risks and thus determine safe flight paths. Substantiated by such analyses, it is once again safe to fly over Iran and Iraq,” the statement said.
“This decision is also based on the information shared within the Dutch group of experts that unites all Dutch airlines, the intelligence services, the NCTV counter-terrorism unit, the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management,” it added.
Following the decision of KLM to resume flights, the British and German governments have also issued a notice to airmen (NOTAM), stating that commercial airlines can once again fly safely over Iran and Iraq.
Furthermore, on 16 January 2020, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued a notification that it would be safe to fly above Iran at an altitude of more than 25,000 feet (7,620 meters).
Numerous global airlines rerouted or canceled flights to avoid airspace over Iraq and Iran in light of the Iranian missile strikes on Iraqi military bases hosting US forces, as well as the downing of Ukrainian passenger jet near Tehran.
The incident came hours after Iran fired ballistic missiles at two American military bases in neighboring Iraq to respond to the US assassination of a senior Iranian military commander in the Arab country earlier this month.
Carrying 167 passengers and nine crewmembers, Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 crashed outside Iran’s capital on 8 January, moments following takeoff from the city’s Imam Khomeini airport, after being mistakenly identified by Iranian air defenses with an incoming cruise missile.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic later identified the cause of the incident as human error.
MNA/IRN 83645518
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