The day is June 4, 2017. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain have just announced that they are halting all land, sea and air travel with Qatar alongside ejecting its diplomats and ordering Qatari citizens to leave the Gulf states within the next two weeks.
Half a decade since the Middle East region was shaken by one of its biggest diplomatic crises to date, ties have been restored. Against the odds, Doha largely emerged as a winner, with the country most recently establishing its first-ever airspace, a goal it has strived for since 2017. This is a significant development for the Gulf country, as it represents the first time since it became independent that it will hold complete and exclusive sovereignty over its airspace.
In 1971, after Qatar and Bahrain gained independence from the United Kingdom, the sovereign nations signed an agreement in which Qatari air navigation services were delegated to Manama. The decision was primarily determined based on the fact that Bahrain was where the majority of military airports and radars were located. Although international law accordingly concedes countries’ right to establish and control their individual airspace, the 1944 Chicago Convention also allows governments to mandate these responsibilities to other nations. Consequently, Bahrain — the smallest Gulf state — has controlled the largest airspace portion above the region, which has implied that any aircraft bound for Qatar is first required to request its permission before flying over. Located in one of the world’s busiest transit regions, Bahrain has also continuously benefited from overflight fees, which airlines are charged in order to pass through a nation’s airspace.
On March 11, the establishment of the Doha Flight Information Region (FIR) was approved by the council members of the UN’s agency responsible for aviation, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). These include Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Singapore, Greece, South Africa and the United States. The delimitation of this new airspace will be done in a two-phase approach, with the proposal for transition due in November 2022.
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