USA Increases Economic Pressure: Sana’a Airport Threatened with Closure

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Despite warnings from the UN envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, in his latest briefing to the Security Council last week about the dangers of the economic escalation led by the government loyal to the Saudi-Emirati coalition with American approval on the peace process, this government continues to provoke Sana’a with new measures. The latest of these is imposing restrictions on the bookings of Yemenia Airways from areas controlled by “Ansar Allah” and transferring bookings to Aden, Egypt, and Jordan.

The National Salvation Government described this measure as “arbitrary” and considered it part of the American escalation implemented through “coalition tools” in Aden. It added that these steps, which threaten to undermine the humanitarian truce and return conditions to what they were before April 2, 2022, clearly aim to close Sana’a Airport, deprive Yemenis of traveling abroad, and inflict heavy losses on Yemenia Airways. Previously, the company’s offices in the capital faced immense pressure due to the high demand for travel from Yemeni patients, students abroad, and businessmen, but now they are almost closed due to the suspension of ticket sales.

As a result, the last Yemenia Airways flight took off from Sana’a Airport to Queen Alia Airport in Jordan early the day before yesterday, carrying only 12 passengers, for the first time since flights resumed in mid-2022 as a result of the humanitarian truce.

A well-informed source at Sana’a Airport confirmed to “Al-Akhbar” that about 170 Yemenis were deprived of boarding the last flight to Jordan, many of whom were patients whose conditions required immediate treatment abroad. He noted that the restrictions imposed on citizens by the government of Ahmed bin Mubarak contradict humanitarian norms, as they target the closure of the only air travel route used by thousands of Yemenis. The source warned of the consequences of involving Yemenia Airways in the conflict and turning it into a tool of the economic war led by the United States against Yemen.

The decision sparked widespread popular and trade union outrage, with the Travel Companies Union in Sana’a considering it a destructive step targeting the entire travel market and threatening dozens of offices and companies in this sector with bankruptcy. Conversely, the Ministry of Transport in Aden defended the measures in a statement, saying, “These measures are not related to any financial disputes between the company branches in Aden and Sana’a. They are part of the government’s (coalition-loyal) plan to transfer all service institutions from Sana’a to Aden, including all Yemenia Airways offices.”

Despite this, the Yemenia administration in Aden marketed another pretext, accusing the Sana’a government of seizing its ticket sales revenues in areas under its control. In a statement, it claimed that “Sana’a is holding the plane named ‘Aden,’ which seats 277 passengers, and preventing the company from repairing it.” It asserted that “the company’s problems can be resolved if Sana’a releases the seized funds and transfers the value of the engines for the plane’s maintenance.” However, a responsible source in the Civil Aviation Authority in the capital denied freezing the company’s accounts. The official Yemeni news agency, Saba – Sana’a version, quoted him as confirming that the company’s accounts in commercial banks in Sana’a are managed by the chairman and the acting chairman of the board there, as required by the company’s interest.

Ironically, Yemenia operates daily flights from Aden Airport to Cairo and Amman, alongside parallel flights from Seiyun International Airport in Wadi Hadramout, generating substantial revenue as it operates without competition, compared to six monthly commercial flights from Sana’a Airport to Queen Alia Airport. Yet, the Sana’a branch of the company funded its employees’ salaries amounting to two million dollars monthly across all Yemeni provinces over the past years, in addition to paying about 36 million dollars to cover operational expenses according to official reports from the Ministry of Transport in the National Salvation Government. It also paid for one of the planes Yemenia purchased a year ago, an Airbus 320, based on a previous agreement between the company branches, with Yemen owning 51% of its shares compared to Saudi Arabia’s 49% since the late 1980s.

A government source in Sana’a told “Al-Akhbar” that an agreement was reached with the company management in Aden to spend from all its accounts, whether in Sana’a or Aden, as well as all its foreign accounts at specific percentages. He clarified that the company deliberately concealed its accounts in Aden and abroad, which exceed $100 million over the past two years, and did not adhere to the agreement on spending procedures from its accounts, set at about 60% from Sana’a and 40% from Aden, to continue operating from the first airport to Jordan and open new travel routes to facilitate the movement of citizens from Sana’a to Cairo International Airport, especially since most Yemeni patients traveling abroad for treatment head to Egypt and India.

The recent measures followed demands by the National Salvation Government to the UN envoy’s office, stressing that the six flights to Jordan are insufficient to alleviate patients’ suffering due to the high demand for ticket bookings at the company’s offices in Sana’a. It called for quickly opening new routes to Egypt and India to facilitate the transfer of patients abroad for treatment. Continuing the escalation against Sana’a could lead to a counter-escalation, such as stopping any civil aviation movement across the country’s skies, noting that “Ansar Allah” had previously prevented more than one plane from landing at more than one rudimentary airport under their opponents’ control.

Source: Al-Akhbar Lebanese Newspaper