Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The first transit plane carrying 179 French tourists landed on Tuesday at the Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA), inaugurating a tourist "air- bridge" for the first time linking Amman to the cities of Lyon, Paris and Toulouse, which will attract tourists to Aqaba next weekend.

In a press statement, General Director of the Jordan Tourism Board (JTB) Abed Al Razzaq Arabiyat, said the move came in light of the JTB's efforts to attract low-cost regular flights from several countries to Queen Alia International Airport in Amman and King Hussein Airport in Aqaba directly.

The JTB, he announced, is working to attract more flights to the cities of Amman and Aqaba directly to function as departure points to visit Jordan's tourist and archaeological sites, noting these tourist trips to the Kingdom would increase the number of tourists from France to the Kingdom, and from other EU countries.

On the future plans, he said the JTB is keen to a "healthy" competitiveness in the aviation sector and to harness it to stimulate the economy by attracting important investments and promoting Jordanian tourism market, which are vital factors for the prosperity of the Jordanian economy.

Arabiyat expected the operation of these flights will contribute to revitalizing tourism traffic to Amman and Aqaba and then to the rest of the tourist regions in Jordan.