After 3 Months, Beirut Airport Reopens

Beirut’s international airport reopened Sunday after being closed by the threat of militia violence for three months.

An airliner bearing the red-and-white markings of Lebanon’s national carrier, Middle East Airlines, arrived at the seaside airport south of Beirut to cheers from ground personnel, according to reports from the Lebanese capital.

The Boeing 707 carried no passengers on the flight from Larnaca, the Cyprus airport where nearly all of the airline’s fleet has been mothballed since Beirut’s airport closed to traffic Feb. 1.

The airline said in a statement that regular passenger traffic will resume today to Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

When the airport closed, only MEA and such Eastern Bloc airlines as Aeroflot, the Soviet national carrier, still dared use the field. There was no announcement from the other airlines about when they might resume traffic to Beirut.

The airport reopening provided a desperately needed boost in morale for residents of Muslim West Beirut, who have been forced, when leaving the country, to travel by taxi through the mountains to Damascus, Syria.

Shelled by Christians

The closure was brought about by shelling of the airfield, apparently by militiamen in Christian East Beirut, where demands have been raised to open a second airfield at Halat, a stretch of highway about 26 miles north of Beirut.

After the shelling, the insurance companies that cover passengers at Beirut airport canceled their coverage, prompting the debt-ridden MEA, once one of the world’s most glamorous airlines, to suspend all traffic.

The Christians have been demanding their own airfield because of the tenuous security on the roads from Christian areas to the airport. The airport road became notorious as a kidnap zone, with Christians as victims.

During the closure, Christians wishing to travel from Lebanon had to take an eight-hour, overnight ferry that plies between Larnaca and the Lebanese port of Juniyah, northeast of Beirut.

In February, Syria deployed about 7,000 troops in West Beirut in an effort to control militia anarchy. Syrians also took control of the airport and established joint patrols along the airport road.

Spokesmen for the Christian Lebanese Front maintain that they will only allow Beirut airport to operate if they can go ahead with plans for the airstrip at Halat.

The Halat airport is too short to accommodate MEA’s smallest airplane, the Boeing 707, and would require the political approval of Druze warlord Walid Jumblatt, who is still technically Lebanon’s minister of transport despite the resignation of Prime Minister Rashid Karami last week.

The airline, saying it has lost $9 million during the latest shutdown, announced that it is increasing ticket prices on all flights to cover increased insurance costs.