Tarco Aviation and Sudanair Restore Khartoum Flights; First Day Three Sudanese Carriers Simultaneously Serve Capital Since War Began

On May 10, 2026 — Day 1121 of Sudan's civil war — Tarco Aviation resumed its Port Sudan–Khartoum–Port Sudan scheduled route and Sudanair launched discounted passenger service to the capital, joining Badr Airlines which had resumed private and passenger flights on May 8–9. This marked the first day since April 2023 that three Sudanese carriers simultaneously operated at Khartoum International Airport — a milestone repeatedly interrupted by RSF battlefield advances, three years of intense Khartoum fighting, and most recently the four-day closure forced by RSF/UAE drone attacks on May 4–5. Sudan's Civil Aviation Authority simultaneously published figures indicating that Sudan had lost over $1 billion in cumulative aviation revenue since the war's outbreak — the sum of lost airport fees, aircraft maintenance contracts, suspended international route revenues, and transit rights income. The rapid resumption of commercial aviation following the May 8–9 NOTAM reopening underscored both the symbolic importance of the Khartoum airport as a governance indicator for Gen. Burhan's Port Sudan government and the fragility of any return to normalcy in a conflict with no credible ceasefire framework. Sudan's civil war had already seen the airport change hands twice — RSF seized it in the opening hours of April 15, 2023; SAF recaptured it in March 2025 — before the first post-war commercial flights landed in late April 2026. The May 4–5 RSF drone attack disrupted that revival within days; the ten-day cycle from attack to multi-carrier resumption illustrated how aviation has become a contested symbol as much as a logistics corridor.