demand. heathrow, who we have been hearing from, has said that actually they have not got the workers on the ground to be able to deal with that influx of passengers and they have spoken to airlines to try to come to an agreement about scaling back capacity. an agreement about scaling back caaci . ., ., , an agreement about scaling back caaci . ., ., an agreement about scaling back caaci. ., ., ., ., capacity. that has not gone down well. a capacity. that has not gone down well- a lot capacity. that has not gone down well. a lot of capacity. that has not gone down well. a lot of staff capacity. that has not gone down well. a lot of staff were - capacity. that has not gone down well. a lot of staff were let - capacity. that has not gone down well. a lot of staff were let go, i well. a lot of staff were let go, fired, made redundant during covid and now they need them back again. it varies from brand to brand. emirates have said let s come to an agreement here. we will scale back o
one of them. what is the significance to your mind, what does it signal as far as the kingdom is concerned about the potential for fully normalizing with israel anytime soon? thank you, becky. well, i think this is a major and significant foreign policy achievement for both the biden administration and caretaker prime minister yair lapid who just assumed office two weeks ago and is now cutting this ribbon. and as you said, this thing was in the works for months. the white house has been negotiating quitely, between saudi arabia, israel and egypt on a much broader deal than just the overflights. the overflights are one part. the second part is the deal around two strategic islands in the red sea that are going to be finally going to be totally transferred from egypt
this issue of the overflights and the islands, it is the whole u.s. strategy in the region which is based on how do we get the arab countries, the sunni countries, to work closer together with israel on regional security so that the u.s. could be, you know, less involved with boots on the ground. how the u.s. can take, you know, frameworks that already exist like the u.s. central command that israel today is part of it, how can we use centcom in order to take the israelis, take the arabs and get them together in their exercises, in the same consultations, in the same exchanges of knowledge and intelligence in order to create the sort of, you know, alliance that doesn t always have to be a formal alliance where people sit in a room and sign a piece of paper, but an operational alliance, how to get the abraham
to saudi arabia and is needed to give an okay to this process which happened yesterday. only after israel gave its okay the saudis agreed to the overflights. and i think that the significance here is that this opens the way and creates this momentum that,you know, down the road, six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, get us to a whole new chapter of the abraham accord in some sort of a normalization agreement between israel and saudi arabia. this will be a roadmap. it is not going to be like this one giant leap from zero to 100. i think we moved today from zero to 20. and in two years time, i think that we can close this gap between 20 and 100, but it will happen very gradually. you make a very good point.
wanted to convey that mbs sort of redeemed himself with president biden, that is the relationship is back on and the vacuum that president biden has been speaking about from a saudi perspective they can begin to have a conversation, an open, direct conversation with the united states and where they stand together going forward. step back and look at the trip by president biden. big picture right now. what do you think are the key takeaways? you have seen today two key things. president biden put them at the top of the list in terms of israel s relationship with saudi arabia. the overflights allowed to fly over saudi arabia and other commercial flights. bringing the countries together. those disputed islands that are now sort of going to more full saudi control that israel has an interest in and a historic voice over what happens there.