menna scene con eka.
https://centreforaviation.com/insig...ider-ramifications-for-global-aviation-348493
The Transit Agreement gives Qatar access to Bahrain and UAE airspace, but not Saudi airspace
In the immediate hours after the various bans were announced, there was confusion regarding the exact meaning and implementation of airspace closure. The difference is critical.
Four Middle East countries – Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE – have closed airspace for flights landing and taking off between their respective countries and the State of Qatar. This is significant and will be explored in further detail in the next section, but potentially a larger impact is the closure of airspace to Qatar-operated flights merely overflying the four countries and not landing or taking off in one of the four countries.
Bilateral air services agreements, whether constrained or permitting open skies, govern landing and take off rights. Yet overflight rights are encompassed primarily in the multilateral Transit Agreement. The Transit Agreement (of 30-Jan-1945) is separate from the Chicago Convention (07-Dec-1944), which merely confirmed the exclusive sovereignty of all states in the airspace above their territory. It therefore became desirable to have a multilateral agreement to allow overflights (and landing for technical reasons, the "first" and "second" freedoms). Not all states that have ratified the Chicago Convention have adhered to the Transit Agreement, but most have.
Three of the four countries banning Qatari flights from landing are party to the Transit Agreement: Bahrain (12-Oct-1971), Egypt (13-Mar-1947) and the UAE (25-Apr-1972).
Crucially, Saudi Arabia in 1962 ratified the Chicago Convention but has not ratified the Transit Agreement. With no obligation to allow Qatar access to its airspace, Saudi Arabia has withdrawn the privilege.
Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE have committed under the agreement to permit scheduled flights from the State of Qatar to overfly their airspace. If the theory is clear, the practice is grey: the sensitivity of the dispute and urgency to force action does not necessarily mean the Transit Agreement will be complied with or will be seen as valid. There is no police force to enforce commercial international compacts and, while ICAO nominally has dispute resolution powers, they have scarcely been resorted to in 70 years and are largely ineffective. So it often falls to recourse to retaliation to bring antagonists to the table; but here Qatar appears to have little to fight back with - in aviation terms at least.