Beirut, Lebanon – The federal government has moved ahead with plans to reopen Rene Mouawad Worldwide Airport in Qlayaat in northern Lebanon, and officers say it could start operations this summer season.
The airport has been a extremely politicised subject for years as financial and social considerations at occasions have taken a backseat to sectarian arguments for and towards it.
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However officers and specialists instructed Al Jazeera that political opposition has largely dimmed in current months. The undertaking is being closely backed by the federal government with Lebanon’s transportation minister set to participate in an illustration flight within the coming weeks.
Officers and specialists additionally stated the airport, positioned 6km (3.7 miles) from the Syrian border, might serve massive components of Syria and Lebanon and supply an financial reprieve to a area with a few of Lebanon’s most economically deprived folks.
[image by Al Jazeera]
A web site the place historical past was made
Constructed within the Thirties, Qlayaat airport was later was a navy airfield by the French military. Within the Nineteen Sixties, it was used for civilian functions, primarily transporting engineers and different workers between Lebanon and different Arab international locations.
From 1988 to 1990 throughout one of the vital brutal intervals of the Lebanese Civil Conflict, lots of the roads from Beirut to different components of the nation have been closed by militias. To get round this, Center East Airways, Lebanon’s nationwide service, started working flights between Beirut and Qlayaat.
“It used to price 25,000 Lebanese lira,” or about $50 on the time, Mazen Sammak, president of the Personal Pilot Affiliation of Lebanon, instructed Al Jazeera from his workplaces in downtown Beirut. “I keep in mind very effectively as a result of I took that flight many occasions.”
On November 5, 1989, Lebanon’s Parliament met on the Qlayaat airport to carry a historic session. Lawmakers ratified the Taif Settlement, which led to the tip of the Lebanese Civil Conflict. It additionally re-elected Hussein al-Husseini as speaker of parliament and Rene Mouawad as president of the republic.
Mouawad, nevertheless, was killed 17 days later by a automobile bomb in Beirut planted by unknown assailants. The airport was then renamed in his reminiscence because the Rene Mouawad Worldwide Airport.
Since then, the airport has been used largely by the Lebanese Air Power.
No extra political opposition
Discussions about reopening the airport for passenger planes have emerged on occasion, significantly during times of warfare.
Throughout Israel’s warfare on Lebanon in 2024, departing and incoming flights to Beirut-Rafic Hariri Worldwide Airport at occasions flew previous the smoke rising from Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs. This led some in Lebanon to demand a second airport away from areas related to the political and navy group Hezbollah.
Some supporters of opening a second airport accused Hezbollah of controlling Beirut’s worldwide airport and importing arms and cash there. Airport workers affiliated with Hezbollah have been reportedly faraway from that airport in April.
Protesters have additionally at occasions blocked the airport street, together with Hezbollah supporters who’ve protested against the group’s disarmament.
Some discussions across the airport have additionally turned sectarian. In the course of the civil warfare, a civilian airport started working out of Halat close to town of Byblos. The Los Angeles Occasions ran a narrative in March 1987 with the headline “Christians Need Personal Airport: In Warring Lebanon, No Glad Landings.”
“What I discover fairly revealing on this debate is that it’s symptomatic that debates of public coverage in Lebanon by no means take into accounts technical execs and cons of the difficulty at stake however very quickly take a sectarian flip,” Karim Emile Bitar, a Lebanese political analyst, instructed Al Jazeera. “This airport has been mentioned for the previous 30 years. There are lots of stable arguments in favour of getting a second airport in Lebanon.”
“The issue is a few rabid sectarian Lebanese insist on turning this challenge right into a sectarian debate and saying this could be the Christian airport versus an airport in west Beirut, the place Hezbollah has lengthy been the dominant pressure,” Bitar stated.
He recalled the civil warfare days when rival militias aimed to carve Lebanon into sectarian cantons. “That is why some folks nonetheless view the opening of one other airport as a possible step within the fragmentation of Lebanon.”
Hezbollah was among the many political factions against the opening of a second airport in Qlayaat or elsewhere within the north. They argued it was a method of dividing Lebanon. However that political opposition appears to have pale in current months.
“The airport has financial and developmental advantages, however there is no such thing as a political opposition,” Qassem Kassir, a journalist near Hezbollah, instructed Al Jazeera. “It’s obligatory and helpful.”
Different critics have questioned whether or not the administration of the airport is financially sustainable and whether or not it will divert visitors away from Beirut.
Consultants and officers appeared optimistic {that a} viable and sustainable resolution was obtainable, probably by way of a public-private partnership to handle the airport someday within the close to future.
Consultants additionally instructed Al Jazeera {that a} second airport would, if something, increase the significance of Beirut.
“It would make extra visitors for Beirut,” Captain Mohammad Aziz, head of Lebanon’s Regulatory Authority for Civil Aviation, instructed Al Jazeera. “Extra airports imply extra job attraction.”
“If we wish to suppose on the nationwide stage, on the curiosity of the nation, having one other airport creates resilience,” Sammak stated. “As a result of in any secure nation, it is best to have one other airport.”
Flying quickly
With the political arguments now largely settled, officers aware of the trouble to reopen Qlayaat’s airport stated passengers could possibly be flying out and in as quickly as this summer season.
“Nothing is holding it again. We simply want to verify it’s prepared for civilian operations,” Aziz stated. “We’d like a few months to regulate the runway and to construct a constructing to obtain civilians.”
He stated the federal government’s objective is to get the airport operational as quickly as attainable after which to begin receiving tenders on a public-private partnership.
Aziz estimated {that a} demonstration flight might land at Rene Mouawad Worldwide Airport as early as April. If all goes to plan, the airport might begin receiving jet plane like Embraer 190s or Airbus A220s, which seat 108 to 133 passengers and have a flight time of about 5 hours.
With this flight time, Aziz stated, flights might go so far as Madrid. “In 5 hours, you may fly from Beirut to London,” he stated. “Flights from Beirut are primarily brief flights. The MEA [Middle East Airlines] common flight is round 2 hours and half-hour.”
Reviews in Lebanese media indicated that Rene Mouawad Worldwide would possibly grow to be Lebanon’s hub for regional and worldwide low-cost airways. Presently, a number of low-cost airways akin to Turkiye’s Pegasus and Transavia, primarily based within the Netherlands, fly to Beirut.
The second airport’s location in Qlayaat, an space in Akkar, one in all Lebanon’s poorest and most underserved areas, might additionally carry an financial boon to the area, officers and specialists stated.
“Airports are what we name financial multipliers,” Sammak stated. “One job in aviation can create a number of jobs in different domains like logistics, tourism and hospitality. For such a disadvantaged space for a few years like Akkar within the north of Lebanon, it is a crucial step as a result of it can create job alternatives for everybody, and it’ll pressure the event of the realm to make this airport prepared.”
He added that the potential infrastructure growth and job prospects would create “social equilibrium” and cut back migration from Lebanon’s underserved north to Beirut.
“This steadiness is essential as a result of it retains households collectively,” he stated. “It has many constructive social impacts as effectively.”
The airport additionally has the potential to serve Syria’s coast. The truth is, economists stated it will probably should serve Syria and Lebanon to be economically viable. Requested if contact had begun with Syrian authorities, Aziz stated talks with Syria have been initiated and “are heading in the right direction”.
With the federal government’s backing and political opposition now not a hurdle, officers are assured concerning the airport’s viability and the potential for growth in northern Lebanon.
“When political will and decision-making align, goals grow to be actuality,” Aziz stated. “We’re going to ensure goals grow to be actuality.”
