Afghanistan and Qatar signed an air services Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Monday.

The Ministry of Transport of Qatar said in a statement that the MoU will increase air traffic rights between the two countries.

“The MoU comes in the context of connecting the State of Qatar with more air services agreements, allowing for its national carrier to expand its network of destinations around the world,” the statement said.

The MoU was signed by Abdul Salam Haidari, Deputy Minister of Transport and Aviation of Afghanistan, and Mohammed Faleh Al-Hajri, in charge of managing the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority.

In a post on X, Qatar’s Civil Aviation Authority said: “A bilateral meeting was held this morning (Monday) between the civil aviation authorities of both Qatar and Afghanistan.”

“The talks focused on ways to enhance cooperation in the field of air transport between the two countries and addressed various topics of mutual interest in the field of civil aviation,” the post read.

This development comes amid an increase in overflights over Afghanistan in the past two months.

Data shows that airlines have been diverting flights over Afghanistan in order to avoid Iranian airspace and the growing conflict in the Middle East.
FlightRadar24 showed 132 over-flights of Afghanistan on 29 September. On 2 October, the day after Iran attacked Israel, the number of Afghan over-flights rose to 176.

On 6 October, the daily number had steadily risen to 222.

FlightRadar24, on Monday evening, at 7.40pm Kabul time, showed a Lufthansa flight and two Singapore Airlines flights using Afghanistan’s airspace.

The data did not show a breakdown of which airlines were using Afghan airspace but British Airways flights have in recent days been recorded on FlightRadar24 as flying over Afghanistan.

Many airlines had started routing through Iran and the Middle East after Russian and Ukrainian skies were closed to most Western carriers when the Ukraine war began in 2022.

However, air traffic control for carriers flying over Afghanistan has not been available since the US forces withdrew from the country in 2021. Instead, airlines have to rely on guidelines from regulators.