Airline «Middle East Airlines»

Middle East Airlines (Arabic: طيران الشرق الأوسط), (IATA: ME, ICAO: MEA) is the national airline of Lebanon, with its headquarters in Beirut. It operates scheduled international services in the Middle East, Europe and Africa, its base of operations is at the Rafic Hariri International Airport. It is mostly owned by the Central Bank of Lebanon (99.37%) and employs 2,310 people.

It is a member of the Arab Air Transport Organization and the International Air Transport Association. In 2007, the airline will join the SkyTeam alliance as an associate member through its partner Air France.

Middle East Airlines was founded on May 31, 1945 by Saeb Salam, with operational and technical support from BOAC, with three De Havilland DH.89A Rapides. Operations began on January 1, 1946 with a service between Beirut and Nicosia, followed by flights to Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Cyprus. Two Douglas DC-3s were purchased in mid-1946. Pan Am acquired a share and management contract in September 1949.

Pan Am was replaced when BOAC acquired 49% of MEA’s shares in 1955. A Vickers Viscount was introduced in October 1955, while an Avro York cargo aircraft was leased in June 1957. On December 15, 1960, the first of four de Havilland Comet 4Cs was received. After the association with BOAC ended on August 16, 1961, MEA was merged with Air Liban on June 7, 1963, giving Air France a shareholding. The full name at the time was Middle East Airlines Air Liban.

In 1963 it also absorbed Lebanese International Airways. The fleet was modernized with the addition of three Sud Aviation Caravelles in April 1963; three Boeing 720Bs in January 1966; a Vickers VC10 leased in March 1967; and several Boeing 707-320Cs in November 1967.

The current name was adopted in November 1965, when the airline was completely merged with Air Liban. Although operations were interrupted by the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, MEA restarted operations by purchasing a Convair CV-990A from American Airlines, which entered service on June 24, 1969. A Boeing 747-200B entered service in June 1975 to complete the Beirut-London route. Operations were interrupted again until 1990, at which point the political situation stabilized. Airbus A310-300s were acquired in 1993 and 1994, followed by an A321-200 and an A330-200, both of which replaced the A310s. The airline was restructured in 2001.

On September 7, 2006, Israel ended its eight-week air blockade of Lebanon. A Middle East Airlines flight from Paris landed at Rafik Hariri International Airport at 6:06 p.m. m. local time (3:06 PM GMT). MEA suspended regularly scheduled flights on September 11, 2006.

The airline will introduce automatic check-in terminals at Beirut International Airport and will launch the Arabesk regional alliance with six other Arab airlines.

They will increase shares listed on the Beirut Stock Exchange by 10 to 20%, as part of their plans to fully privatize the airline.

The airline announced in December 2005 that it will expand its fleet by acquiring an Airbus aircraft in 2007 and another in 2008. The model, however, has not been specified, but at least one of them is expected to be an A330-200 to be used. replacing the Airbus A321 that serves the daily route to Paris in combination with an Airbus A330 that also serves the same route daily, so that there are two daily Airbus A330s.

The airline is also planning to acquire aircraft with capacity for between 50 and 70 passengers, to use them on regional routes. The types have not been determined yet, but it is presumed that they would be the Bombardier CRJ-700 or the Embraer ERJ-170.

During March 2007, MEA Chairman of the Board Mohamad El-Hout said in an interview that the airline has 4 Airbus A330s and 4 Airbus A319s on order. MEA will start receiving them in June 2008.