Middle East Airlines to resume direct flights to Baghdad end

[tih]

BEIRUT: Middle East Airlines (MEA) have announced they are resuming flights to Iraq at the end of the month – one of few travel companies to re-open links since the US-led invasion.

The national carrier of Lebanon is set to make its first flight from Rafik Hariri International Airport on October 29 for the first time in over 20 years, which officials say is due to growing demand.

MEA will start with four trips a week – flying Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, but the company has said they are hoping to extend it to a daily service before the year-end.

The brand new 140-seater Airbus A320 is expected to fill up in the coming days in time for its first 1 hour 30 minute flight to Baghdad International Airport next Thursday.

Economy seats on the airbus are going for $400, including tax, and business class for $800.

The chairman and general manager of MEA, Mohammad al-Hout, is expecting good business for the new route, which he said was opened up in response to figures released this year by Lebanon’s Tourism Ministry.

The statistics show that Iraq provides the country with the third highest number of tourists, after Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

“The volume of Iraqi visitors means it makes sense to start providing more regular flights,” Hout told The Daily Star.

He added that the move to begin commercial flights again to the country was “not about increasing internal stability, but purely about airport security.”

The Baghdad airport, formally Saddam International, has suffered several security scares in recent years under the supervision of US troops, but Hout said he had no residual concerns.

“We wouldn’t open up the line if weren’t sure that it was safe to do so. Our decision was based on improved security at the [Baghdad International] airport and the surrounding area – what happens to people once they are there, however, is out of our control,” Houti added.

Currently, the only direct service connecting the two countries is Flying Carpet Airway, a small Lebanese company that runs regular flights to Iraqi capital Baghdad, Irbil, Suleimaniyya and Basra.

Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi will greet the first plane from Baghdad at 4 p.m at Rafik Hariri International Airport as part of an official inauguration ceremony, in a sign of warming relations between the two Arab countries.

Last year outgoing Prime Minister Fouad Siniora met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to discuss increasing economic ties between Leba non and Iraq.

Siniora praised Maliki for improved security in the war-torn country during the diplomatic visit, and the two were said to have talked about expanding oil trading. Lebanon is one of few countries to maintain an embassy in the capital over the past years.

The UN imposed a ban on all commercial air traffic destined for Iraq in 1991, however several international routes to the country’s main airport have started up in recent times.

Last year alone saw six airlines open up routes again to Iraq; including Bahrain Air, British-based airline bmi and Sweden’s Nordic Airways.

Source: daily star