MEA fumes as foreign airlines fly in to Beirut
Ramzi Stephan
Osama Habib
Daily Star staff
Mohamed Hout’s campaign to put an end to the open-skies policy has received
another blow, with the Civil Aviation Department increasing the number of
flights by foreign airlines into Beirut this summer by more than 12 percent.
To make matters worse for the embattled chairman of Middle East Airlines,
Najib Mikati, minister of transport and public works, also intends to give
permits to the national carriers of Cuba, Malta, Sudan, Ethiopia, Slovakia
and Sri Lanka to use Beirut Airport this summer.
The number of foreign airlines flying to Beirut will rise to 37. Gulf Air
has already increased its weekly flights to Beirut from five to 14, while
Emirates has doubled its arrivals from five to 10. Swiss Air, Austrian
Airways and Egypt Air are increasing flights to seven per week.
The Czech airline, CSA, will have 28 flights over the summer period. Total
fights into and out of Beirut Airport by MEA and foreign airlines will reach
407 a week. The share of foreign airlines will be 242, compared with 165 to
MEA.
Hout argues that the increase in traffic movement at the airport will not
help boost the number of tourists to Lebanon because some airlines are using
Beirut as a transit point.
But Civil Aviation officials counter that the number of passengers landing
at Beirut Airport rose by more than 7 percent in the first four months of
this year. Officials at the airport expect the number of passengers to rise
by more than 14 percent this summer.
“We were flooded with requests from many airlines to increase flights to
Beirut,” said Faysal Mikdashi, the director of Civil Aviation. He added that
many Lebanese living in the United States, Canada and South America had
decided to come to Lebanon this summer. In light of this unexpected
pressure, Mikdashi received a instructions from the Ministry of Transport to
meet the requests of all foreign airlines.
“This is very hectic season for us, as is evident from the applications for
more flights that pile up on my desk every week,” Mikdashi said.
He said that Beirut Airport was well equipped to meet the rush. The second
phase of the new terminal, which will be completed in April 2000, has the
capacity to receive 2 million passengers a year. The airport is expected to
handle 6 million passengers in 2003. Mikdashi admitted that construction
around the airport last year caused congestion, “but we took all the
necessary measures to ensure that all passengers departed and arrived on
time,” he said.
He said that the increase in the number of flights by foreign airlines would
affect MEA one way or another. “The decision to open the skies to foreign
airlines has been decided by the Cabinet and there is nothing we can do
about it,” he said.
Hout says the open-skies policy is costing MEA $30 million in losses each
year. “This means that all our work to keep the company flying will end up
in failure,” said an MEA official. “The government is asking us to improve
the services and at the same time it allows other airlines to have unlimited
access.”
He added that restricting the open-skies policy was an integral part of the
business plan to rescue MEA. “The company, which has nine Airbus planes,
does not have the means to compete with major airlines,” he said, adding
that some of the European airlines would inevitable take passengers from the
national carrier. He added that some of the foreign airlines, such as KLM,
were already picking up passengers at points served by MEA..
Travel agencies are enthusiastic about the decision to increase the number
of flights to Beirut. Fernando Bustani, an employee at Tania travel, said
many passengers could not get on to planes last year because of overbooking.
“With more planes and flights,” he predicted, “this problem should ease.”
He said that travel agencies were so busy this year that some passengers
have made reservations to fly to Beirut more than three months in advance.
“This open-skies free-for-all is getting out of hand,” commented the MEA
official. “At this rate there will come a time when each MEA passenger will
have their own plane.”
DS: 19/05/99
Deeb Younis
Ramzi Stephan <ra...@kabsi.at> wrote in message
news:3742f...@news.kabsi.at...
I dont understand how can MEA be having trouble filling up their planes,
when everyone I know is having problems getting a seat to Lebanon every
summer, MEA is to blame, Overbooking, Oversmoking, Bad Service On Plane and
in Airport... They should stop Complaining, Offer Lowest Fares, and Better
Service, Frequent Miles, Even double Increase Mileage Points to get Repeat
Travelers.
I fly KLM to geneva from LA, via Amsterdam, I end up flying RT to and From
Geneva, so that I can get to Beirut from Amesterdam, Just to Keep My
Frequent Miles, I could have gone Swissair to Geneva nonstop, then Beirut,
but I Like KLM's Service (Swissair Allows Smoking on US bound Flights), and
get to use my miles with Northwest airlines/Cyprus/Aloha/Hilton/ etc... Why
would I want to use MEA, I die from smoke, service sucks, company 20 years
behind, passengers never respect Non Smoking Sections, majority of flights
are delayed, twice I had to go thru the hassle of missing my connecting
flights.
Again MEA should Shape up or Ship out! Maybe if MEA had accese to JFK, it
could help it out, but my experience in the past was flying from JFK on MEA
(1 Stop in Paris), the hassle of a Non Direct Flight, and the fact that 12
hours in a plane without any sort of Entertainment, NO music no Movie!