Airlines resume flights to Beirut Airport as negotiated ceasefire holds    

Following the ceasefire agreed between Israel and the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon in late November 2024, airlines are cautiously resuming international flights to the country’s primary air gateway at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport (BEY).  

According to reports in local media including The New Arab, several international airlines from Arabic countries have already resumed flights while others, including Western carriers, are taking a more cautious approach, and are holding off the resumption of regular air services for the time being.  

Lebanon is expecting to see a substantial return of scheduled international flights by the middle of December 2024 when airlines that withdrew services as a result of the latest upturn in hostilities between Israel and Lebanon return. Only the country’s national carrier, Middle East Airlines, has continued flights throughout the tensions, albeit on a reduced scale.       

On December 4, 2024, Lebanon’s Caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transport Ali Hamieh announced that he had approved the resumption of airline operations to and from Beirut’s international airport.  

“Most Arab and foreign airlines should be back to normal operations by mid-December,” Hamieh said, adding that the return of commercial airline operations was needed to coincide with high levels of demand over the Christmas and New Year period. 

Mike Fuchslocher / ShutterstockThe resumption of flights to Beirut Airport is seen as a vital step towards Lebanon’s recovery efforts while the country is keen to establish some normality to life for its citizens after the recent uptick in hostilities. While some carriers have seized the opportunity to resume services to capitalize on the surging holiday air travel demand in the region, others are said to be opting to wait both until the holidays have passed, but also to see how the cease, which is thought by many commentators to be fragile, holds out in the coming weeks.  

Airlines that have already resumed flights to Lebanon include Royal Jordanian which resumed its regular daily services between Amman and Beirut on December 1, 2024. Turkish Airlines was originally scheduled to resume flights on November 30, 2024, although delayed its first Istanbul to Beirut flight until December 3, 2024.  

In the coming days, other airlines will be resuming services to Beirut. Ethiopian Airlines has confirmed the resumption of flights between Beirut and Addis Ababa from December 8, 2024, while Qatar Airways is due to restart operations to its hub at Doha on December 9, 2024, with a single daily round-trip flight. 

Elsewhere, among the Middle Eastern carriers, Emirates is expected to restart flights to Dubai on December 9, 2024, while Etihad Airways is looking at starting flights from its Abu Dhabi hub on December 18, 2024.  

EgyptAir is tentatively planning to resume Cairo to Beirut flights on December 17, 2024, although The New Arab reports that final confirmation of this date is still pending. Iraqi Airways intends a gradual restoration of flights from four Iraqi cities (Baghdad, Najaf, Sulaymaniyah, and Erbil) to Beirut starting December 8, 2024, but again is yet to officially announce the restart.  

Vladimir Zhupanenko / ShutterstockIn terms of carriers from Western Europe, Air France announced on December 2, 2024, that its Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) to Beirut flights would remain suspended until January 5, 2025, at the earliest citing “ongoing security concerns,” while the Lufthansa Group, which includes Lufthansa, SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Eurowings, (and soon to be joined by ITA Airways), has said it is unlikely to resume service to Beirut before March 2025. 

According to ch-aviation, Middle East Airlines operates a fleet of 22 aircraft comprising eight A320s, 10 A321neos, and four A330-200s and flies on 37 routes to 32 destinations across 23 countries.   

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