Airlines forced to cancel Beirut flights

Malev Hungarian Airlines, which has a long history of providing travellers with regularly scheduled flights to Beirut, has been forced to cancel its flights this past weekend, due to the civil unrest and severe violence that has gripped the Lebanese capital over the course of the past several days. Hungary’s flag carriers offers passengers three weekly flights from Budapest’s Ferihegy Airport to Beirut, but ended up cancelling flights that were supposed to depart last Friday and Saturday, and may also end up cancelling another flight scheduled to depart later today. All passengers who are affected by these cancellations are required to contact Malev’s customer service department by telephone, using the numbers found on the carrier’s website: http://www.malev.com/.

Many more airlines have also suspended their Beirut routes over the course of the past few days, including Middle East Airlines and Emirates, both of which operated flights from the United Arab Emirates. Additionally, Beirut’s Rafik Hariri Airport even closed for a period of time this past weekend, making it impossible for airplanes to land. As such, all arriving flights were temporarily suspended.

Since then, a sense of general calm has been restored in Beirut, but fierce battles continue in Tripoli. Citizens of some countries, including Australia, have already been issued travel advisories, in order to convince them not to travel to Lebanon. The Australian government noted that there has been a “significant escalation in politically motivated violence” including armed clashes in the Lebanese capital. Australia even indicated that it may be forced to shut down its Beirut embassy, if the violence persists.

www.malev.hu