Flights between London and Baghdad

THE first direct flights between London and Baghdad by a private Iraqi firm will begin next week, a civil aviation official said on Sunday.The Al-Nasr company of Iraqi businessman Hussein al-Khawam 'will fly its first Baghdad London flight on November 3, but that date is not finalised,' said Nasser Hussein Badr, civil aviation director at the transport ministry. A Boeing 737 leased from a European firm would initially fly the route, he said, without specifying what name the airline would bear.Flagship carrier Iraqi Airways said in May that the state-owned company would be dissolved after one of its planes was impounded at London's Gatwick Airport in relation to a financial row with Kuwait.

Al-Nasr's announcement came on the same day a plane operated by France's Aigle Azur landed at Baghdad International Airport, becoming the first flight by a European carrier to arrive in the city since a 1990 international embargo on Iraq.Aigle Azur's twice-weekly Paris-Baghdad flights would begin in mid-January, the airline said. That flight, and the announcement of the route to London, come at a time when foreign companies are demonstrating a growing desire to grab a share in oil-rich Iraq's post-war reconstruction, following the 2003 US-led invasion.More than 300 foreign firms are taking part in a 10-day international exhibition that opens in Baghdad on Monday, featuring companies from every sector other than defence. The interest in aviation and business also indicate the improving security situation in Iraq, where bombs, killings and kidnappings remain routine, but significantly less than a peak in 2006 and 2007. - AFP