View of the passenger hall at Beirut International Airport in January 2024. Photo credit: Mohammad Yassine
Following the two series of explosions of communication devices which have so far killed at least 26 people and injured more than 3,200, some airlines have decided to cancel their flights to or from Beirut airport, according to two anonymous sources working in the sector, one in Lebanon and the other in Europe.
According to this combined information, the Turkish low-cost Pegasus Airlines, Iraqi Airways, and the Algerian SalamAir, which was supposed to fly to Muscat, canceled their flights.
On the other hand, EgyptAir, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, and Turkish Airlines maintained their connections.
"Most of the airlines that still serve Beirut react according to events," observes one of the two sources contacted. An anonymous source from Middle East Airlines (MEA), wishing to remain anonymous for professional reasons, indicates that the national airline has neither modified nor canceled any flights, although it regularly adjusts its schedules since the latest rise in tensions, which took place at the end of July between Israel and Hezbollah at the border between South Lebanon and northern Israel. The two parties have been exchanging fatal shots since October 8, 2023, the day after the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
The airlines in the Air France group serving Lebanon, Air France and its low-cost Transavia, had already canceled their scheduled flights until Thursday, as reminded by the president of the Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies in Lebanon (Attal), Jean Abboud.
In the middle of the day, before the second wave of explosions, he noted that few changes had taken place on the flight schedules.
Two European companies:
On Tuesday, as Lebanon continued to count the dead and injured from the pager explosions, which many sources attribute to Israel, Air France announced the suspension of its flights from Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport to Beirut and Tel Aviv until Sept. 19.
Transavia also canceled its flights for this period and offers no flights connecting Beirut on its website before Friday. Only two European companies still appear on these schedules: Cyprus Airways (for a flight to Larnaca on Thursday) and Sundair (a flight departing from Berlin left on time this Wednesday and arrived later in the day in Beirut).
"These are the two European companies that have maintained their flights to Beirut," insists a source working for a travel agency in Europe. She recalls that the airlines in the Lufthansa group (Lufthansa, Swiss, and Eurowings) had already suspended their flights between the end of July and the beginning of August. Lufthansa will not resume its connections before Oct. 15.
The decisions to maintain or suspend flights to countries experiencing periods of unrest depend on the imminence of the risk and the terms of the carriers' insurance contracts, as well as the decisions made by insurers or reinsurers in response to the evolving risk in the short, medium, and long term. Since August 8, approximately half of the airlines that served Beirut have suspended their connections.