A plane takes off from Beirut Rafic Hariri airport close to the city's southern suburbs, in Lebanon, on Sunday.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
There was a crackle of gunfire from somewhere nearby, and an Israeli reconnaissance drone buzzed overhead, as Middle East Airlines Flight 422 lifted off into the setting sun.
Airports across the Mideast have shut down and hundreds of flights have been cancelled since a region-wide war erupted Feb. 28. But Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport has continued to operate − even amid an intense Israeli bombardment of the city’s southern suburbs, which lie just outside the airport’s perimeter.
Middle East Airlines, which earned the moniker of “most badass airline on the planet” for continuing to fly in and out of Beirut throughout a two-month Israel-Hezbollah war in 2024, is living up to that reputation once again. MEA Flight 422, which took off heading west, then banked south toward its destination, Riyadh, was just one of 20 planes to depart from Beirut on Sunday, as Lebanon’s flag carrier also kept up its service to Paris, London, Istanbul and other hubs.
The airport departures board showed that every other airline had cancelled all flights into and out of Beirut as Israel and Hezbollah continued their latest, week-old, war.
“It’s very weird, but we are used to it,” said Captain Mohammed Aziz, head of the Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority, in an interview at his office inside the airport. With a bitter laugh, he called the 2024 war “a good rehearsal” for the current situation.
Captain Mohammed Aziz, chairman of the Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
The southern suburbs of Beirut, which are collectively known as the Dahiya, were relatively quiet on Sunday afternoon other than the sound of light arms fire, which was perhaps aimed at the drone overhead. But Capt. Aziz has photos that he’s taken in recent days of smoke rising from Israeli air strikes just a few kilometres from the airport.
The decision to keep the airport open, he said, was made after receiving an indirect assurance from the U.S. embassy that Israel would not target the facility itself.
“It’s an assurance, it’s not a guarantee,” he said. “If they tell us, ‘No more assurance,’ we’ll say, ‘Okay, thank you, goodbye,’ and close down until further notice.”
For now, MEA offers an escape route for the 23,588 Canadian citizens registered in Lebanon − if they want it. The Canadian embassy in Beirut has been block-booking 50 seats a day on MEA flights to Istanbul, reserving the seats for Canadians who want to leave. Passengers must purchase their own tickets at US$381 each.
Capt. Aziz said the Israeli military knows where and when the MEA flights are going. The control tower at the airport is in constant contact with their counterparts in Cyprus, he said, who in turn are relaying the flight paths and other details to Israel. “It’s really good co-ordination, and so far, it’s working fine.”
A couple checks the departure board at Beirut Rafic Hariri airport.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
Nonetheless, only one of the airport’s three runways – the one closest to the Mediterranean Sea and furthest from the Dahiya – is currently being used. MEA has also been forced to park some of its 22 planes outside the country as insurers have scaled back coverage.
While he acknowledges that few other airlines would keep operating under such conditions, Capt. Aziz, a former pilot himself, said the decision to keep flying wasn’t taken lightly.
“My son is a captain with MEA, and he’s still flying. The chairman of MEA’s son is a captain, and he’s still flying. If we didn’t trust the assurances, they wouldn’t be flying,” he said.
However, he conceded that if his office applied the safety standards of Western countries to the situation, “we would stop operating.”
In a country that has lurched from one crisis to the next in recent years, the airport and MEA have become symbols of Lebanon’s resilience. As the war continues to spread, both in Lebanon and around the Middle East, it’s a comfort for many to know that they can leave if they wish.
“I am actually surprised that they’re still flying,” said Samar Ali, 38, who was waiting with her four children for the Sunday evening flight to Cyprus. She had arrived six hours early and acknowledged that she would worry until she and her family were out of Lebanese airspace.
Samar Ali, left, sits with her children before taking off.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
“Thank God for MEA,” said Mary Chamoun Murr, 52, after waving goodbye to her son Dany as the 23-year-old disappeared through passport control on his way back to university in Paris.
Capt. Aziz says there hasn’t yet been a mass exodus of people trying to get out of the country, as many Lebanese seemed to be planning to wait it out and endure a conflict that shows no signs of ending soon. So far, he said, only Russia had sent a plane in to evacuate its nationals. Capt. Aziz said several Iranians left on the same flight after a warning from Israel that Iranian government officials should leave Beirut.
On Thursday, the Israeli military warned all 700,000 residents of the Dahiya to leave their homes, with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich warning that the area “will look like Khan Younis” – a city in Gaza that has been effectively flattened by Israeli fire during more than two years of war there. A similar warning has also been issued for all of southern Lebanon, which, like the Dahiya, is considered a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia.
More than 394 Lebanese – a toll that rose by 100 on Sunday alone – have been killed since March 2, when Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets at Israel. The militia said that attack was in retaliation for the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the Feb. 28 air strike that marked the start of the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran.
While Capt. Aziz says he’s had no conversations with Hezbollah about staying away from the airport, he doesn’t believe the militia – which has come under heavy criticism for dragging the country into yet another war – would enter the facility and risk drawing Israeli fire. “It’s not to their advantage if [Israel] bombs the airport. They already have enough people against them internally – they don’t want to put everybody against them.”
Capt. Aziz points out the airport's western runway on a map in his office.Oliver Marsden/The Globe and Mail
The airport has not always been spared in the past. Israel bombed its runways during both its 1982 invasion of Lebanon and another Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.
Just getting to the airport – while only a half-hour drive from the centre of Beirut – is fraught. Three people were killed and six wounded on March 4 when Israeli missiles struck two cars on the main road connecting the city to the airport.
And the week-old war continues to widen. Early Sunday, Israel carried out its first air strike in central Beirut, hitting a room in a Ramada Hotel in the coastal Raouche neighbourhood. Israel said the strike, which killed four people and injured 10 others, targeted members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps staying in the hotel.
Capt. Aziz said the reason many Lebanese aren’t panicking – and the airport is able to stay open – is that the Israeli strikes have so far been carefully targeted. He said he faced worse when he flew in and out of the city as an MEA pilot during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war.
“At least now you know that the people who are shelling and bombing know what their target is,” he said. “In the civil war, you had factions with rocket-propelled grenades, anti-aircraft guns, whatever, just shooting in the air. … This is why the airport used to close so frequently.”
He said today’s pilots, like his son, are proud of their “badass” reputation and the role they play – but would much rather fly under normal conditions.
“They are proud that they have enough guts to take off and land. But nobody likes to keep on flying like this. Nobody is seeking such a reputation. People want to live in peace.”