In this file phoot, then-Israeli Minister of Sports and Culture Miri Regev attends the weekly cabinet meeting on June 21, 2015 in Jerusalem. (DAN BALILTY / POOL / AFP)

JERUSALEM - Israel and Jordan signed on Thursday a deal that allows flying over each other's airspace, Israel's transport ministry said.

Under the new agreement, Israeli and Jordanian flights could use each other's airspace during weekdays between 11 pm and 6 am local time, and a longer window of 12 hours will be opened on weekends, according to a statement issued by the ministry.

The deal is expected to significantly decrease the flight times between Israel and the states of the Gulf, the ministry noted

The deal is expected to significantly decrease the flight times between Israel and the states of the Gulf, the ministry noted.

Israeli Transport Minister Miri Regev said in the statement that the agreement will help Israel "become more integrated into the region."

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"We are opening up new ways of cooperation in the fields of transportation and economy," she added.

Israel and Jordan signed peace accords in 1994. Direct flights between the two neighboring countries have been carried out for years but they did not use each other's airspaces for flights to different destinations.

The announcement came in the wake of the historic normalization deal of Israel with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which was announced on Aug 13.

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In September, Saudi Arabia declared that it had opened its airspace to "all countries" flying to and from the UAE, a move hailed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "tremendous breakthrough" that paves the way for direct flights between Israel and the UAE.