The officials said Israel has received an official request from Egyptair to operate the flights instead of Air Sinai, which has run the route for the past decades, after former President Hosni Mubarak refused to let the national carrier land in Israel with an Egyptian flag.

Air Sinai, whose aircraft are not adorned with the Egyptian flag, currently has seven flights a week using two designated aircraft only, according to i24NEWS.

Egypt reportedly would like to replace the smaller company with the national carrier and operate 21 flights a week.

The development follows Israel’s normalization agreements with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Egypt views the agreements as way to open new possibilities for travel and commerce in the region.

Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treatment with Israel in 1979, though their ties have been formally cold at times, and Egypt’s political elite has remained hostile to any normalization of ties with Israel.

In 2018, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi hailed the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel as “stable and permanent” and said that most Egyptians supported the peace treaty.