in 1955 The carrier traces its history back to 1953, when
Kuwait National Airways was formed by a group of Kuwaiti businessmen; initially, the government took a 50% interest. The operation made Kuwait Airways the customer of the type worldwide. In October 2007, the new CEO pledged that the airline should be privatised to compete efficiently against other airlines. He says that the airline will encounter difficulty in advancing, especially in fleet renewal, without privatisation. Flights to
Iraq were resumed in November 2013; Kuwait Airways had discontinued services to the country in 1990 following the
invasion of Kuwait. In response, Senator
Richard Blumenthal, along with five other senators, wrote a letter to
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in May 2015 urging him to investigate the allegations. In October 2015, at the conclusion of an investigation, the Department of Transportation issued Kuwait Airways an order to "
cease and desist from refusing to transport Israeli citizens between the U.S. and any third country where they are allowed to disembark". In the letter, the DOT also accused Kuwait Airways of following the
Arab League boycott of Israel. Additionally, New York City Councilmember
Rory Lancman asked the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates JFK Airport, to "terminate the airline's lease if it doesn't immediately change its policy." For its part, the airline said that it complies with Kuwaiti Law which prohibits the company from entering "into an agreement, personally or indirectly, with entities or persons residing in Israel, or with Israeli citizenship." The airline also petitioned the
Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the dispute. The matter was settled on 15 December 2015, when Kuwait Airways informed the United States Department of Transportation that it would eliminate service between JFK and London Heathrow, with
The Daily Telegraph reporting that tickets for the route were no longer being sold effective the following week. A similar lawsuit was filed in 2017 by the
Lawfare Project against the airline for refusing to allow Israelis on a flight from Frankfurt to Bangkok with a layover in Kuwait. Unlike the case of the New York to London route, in this lawsuit, the German court upheld the right of the airline to refuse passengers with Israeli passports to layover in Kuwait. ==Corporate affairs and identity==