Royal Jordanian (RJ, Amman Queen Alia) resumed scheduled flights to Baghdad from its Amman Queen Alia base on January 5, having cancelled all services to the Iraqi capital just two days earlier. The move came after a US drone-strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, a general in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), on January 3 that left Iraq's national security at risk.
According to Flightradar24 ADS-B data, daily flight RJ810 was suspended on January 3 and 4 only, with service resuming on January 5. Flight RJ814, which operates 6x weekly from Amman to Baghdad was halted between January 3 and 7. The 4x weekly flight RJ816 was cancelled on consecutive dates from January 3 to 5, with the service scheduled for 2205L on January 7 planned to operate at the time of writing.
The airline operates 18x weekly on the city pair, in addition, it flies to Sulaymaniyah (3x weekly), Erbil (9x weekly), Basrah (4x weekly) and Najaf (3x weekly) in Iraq. Services to these regional points were maintained during the temporary suspension of flights to Baghdad.
Meanwhile, EgyptAir (MS, Cairo International) has announced it has joined Gulf Air (GF, Bahrain International) and Kuwait Airways (KU, Kuwait) in suspending flights to Iraq (specifically Baghdad) for three days starting from Wednesday, January 8, because of the security situation in the country.
