Yemen's Transport Ministry Rejects Unauthorized Iranian Flights to Sana'a Airport

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Yemen’s Ministry of Transport, based in the interim capital Aden, has voiced strong opposition to unauthorized foreign flights, particularly from Iran, into Sana’a International Airport, describing them as a violation of national sovereignty and a breach of both domestic and international aviation law. The ministry said any international air service operating to or from Sana’a must first be authorized by Yemen’s internationally recognized government and must comply with the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as well as Yemen’s own national legislation.

The declaration follows a July 3, 2026 incident in which an aircraft the Yemeni government attributes to Iran landed at Sana’a Airport, which lies in territory held by the Houthi movement. According to Yemeni officials and regional reporting, the flight was operated by the Iranian carrier Mahan Air, arrived from Tehran, and later departed carrying a Houthi delegation and its accompanying aides. The internationally recognized government condemned the landing as, in its words, “a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Republic of Yemen” and a defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

The dispute deepened when Iran subsequently sought permission, reportedly through the Saudi-led Coalition to Support Legitimacy, to operate a further Mahan Air flight from Tehran to return the same Houthi members to Sana’a. Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, the country’s top executive body, rejected the request outright. In an extraordinary session chaired by its head, Rashad al-Alimi, the council said the government and armed forces would take all measures permitted under the constitution and international law to prevent any recurrence, and it held both Tehran and the Houthis responsible for any consequences that might follow.

For years, Yemen’s civil aviation sector has been one of the clearest casualties of a conflict that has split the country’s institutions between the Aden-based government, led by al-Alimi and Prime Minister Salem Saleh bin Braik, and the Houthi authorities who control Sana’a and much of the north. Control over the capital’s airport has repeatedly become a bargaining chip, with each side accusing the other of exploiting air access for political leverage rather than for the benefit of ordinary passengers.

The government has also accused the Houthi movement of crippling the national carrier. Officials say the group seized four Yemenia Airways aircraft in 2024, and that despite repeated proposals to resume commercial service through Yemenia, the Houthis rejected them and pressed instead to have Mahan Air fly the Sana’a to Tehran route. The government frames this as an attempt to substitute a foreign carrier for Yemen’s own flag airline, a step it argues would erode both regulatory oversight and national sovereignty at a critical moment.

Iran’s alleged role touches a long-running regional fault line. The government and its Gulf backers accuse Tehran of arming and financing the Houthis, casting the airport standoff as one front in a wider contest for influence in Yemen. Iran has consistently denied providing direct military support to the group. The Yemeni government says the recent flights show Tehran seeking to entrench its presence, and it has called on Iran to halt what it describes as interference in Yemeni affairs and to respect the country’s territorial integrity.

Beyond the politics, the standoff carries a heavy humanitarian dimension. The United Nations estimates that well over half of Yemen’s population, more than 18 million people by recent counts, requires some form of assistance, and reliable air links are essential for moving aid workers, medical cases and relief supplies. Sana’a Airport reopened to limited commercial traffic under a truce arrangement reached in 2022, and aid agencies have warned that any renewed disruption to civilian flights could compound an already dire situation for ordinary Yemenis, many of whom rely on the route to reach medical treatment abroad.

The airport’s fate is also bound up with the geography that makes Yemen strategically significant. The country sits astride the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a narrow chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden through which a substantial share of global shipping passes each year. Disputes over who controls access to Yemeni airspace and infrastructure therefore reverberate well beyond the country’s borders, drawing the attention of international shipping interests and regional powers alike whenever tensions rise.

For the Aden government, the Transport Ministry’s statement is intended as a marker of legal authority as much as a protest. By insisting that only flights cleared by the recognized government and compliant with ICAO standards may use Sana’a, officials are seeking to reassert a regulatory framework badly frayed by years of war. Whether that position can be enforced in practice, given that the airport itself lies outside government control, remains an open question that neither diplomacy nor military pressure has yet resolved.

What is clear is that civil aviation has become inseparable from Yemen’s wider political struggle. Restoring a stable, internationally recognized aviation sector would matter not only for travellers but for the flow of humanitarian relief on which millions of people depend. For now, the competing claims over Sana’a Airport underline how far the parties remain from the kind of negotiated settlement that would allow the skies over Yemen to reopen on terms all sides accept.