Airplane belonging to Middle East Airlines. (Credit: AFP)
BEIRUT — Middle East Airlines will push forward the departure times of all departing aircraft by one hour, starting from midnight 25-26 March until midnight 20-21 April 2023, the airline said in a statement issued Thursday.
This came after the Grand Serail announced Thursday that the transition into summer timings, which was scheduled to take place the night of April 1, was “exceptionally” postponed for a month. It remains unclear whether timings on digital appliances and in international systems will be automatically adjusted in Lebanon regardless of the decision.
The secretary general of the cabinet announced that it has "exceptionally" postponed the transition until midnight April 20-21.
Lebanon usually follows suit with Europe's shift into daylight savings time on the last Sunday of March.
“We’re still not sure if the clocks will not shift automatically or they’ll shift and people have to fix them manually,” cybersecurity expert Majd Dhainy told L'Orient Today, noting that NTP servers are managed by several organizations and governments.
“If the Lebanese government contacts the officials in charge and notifies them that they wish to remain in daylight savings mode for one extra month things will go smoothly,” Dhainy explained.
The Grand Serail has not responded to questions regarding the consequences of the decision or whether a procedure was launched to notify NTP servers.