The first commercial flight in more than a decade left Somalia’s Mogadishu International Airport on Sunday.This comes two weeks after the airport was reopened after being closed for 11 years due to the conflict that has engulfed the nation.

A plane operated by a local company, Jubba Airlines, departed for the United Arab Emirates.

“The plane arrived from the UAE, but flew back carrying passengers,” said Libaan Abubakar Sharif, one of of the officers in the company told Agence France Presse.

“We will from now start using the international airport. The airport is better because it can handle large aircraft,” he added.

Jubba Airways was started back in 1998 by entrepreneurs from Calgary in Canada who saw an opportunity to start a low fare air travel across Southern Somalia.

Commercial flights have been relying on smaller airstrips and other flat grounds with no air-control facilities in Somalia to land planes and service communities.
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