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Beirut airport survives difficult times
Dr. Andreas Zeitler/SST
“We work here in a most unusual way as we find ourselves in a highly critical and unstable situation.” This is how Dr. Hamdi Chaouk, Director of the Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority, describes day-to-day operations at Beirut airport. Violent flare-ups are a regular occurrence in this historic trading nation surrounded by powerful neighbours, which has been worn down by decades of fighting.
But notwithstanding this, passengers flying on the approach to Rafic Hariri International Airport from the north, are greeted by views of a picturesque Mediterranean coastline leading down past the La Corniche seafront promenade with the famous Raouché Pigeon Rocks, the landmark of the Lebanese capital city. During the night, the familiar slopes of the Lebanese mountains along this route twinkle amidst the darkness and make it easy to forget that the Land of the Cedars is still an unstable country in an extremely difficult political situation. This is also reflected directly in the situation of Beirut airport, being the only civilian airport of the country.
Equally peaceful is the approach to the airport terminal. Designed for an annual throughput of six million passengers, it was rebuilt from scratch after the civil war, like the terminal building for General Aviation, which was opened in June 2005. To enable it to cope better with the higher volume of flights which it was hoped would follow the expansion, a new 3,400m runway (17/35) running parallel to the coast but protruding out into the sea for two kilometres was added under German direction in 1996. A third runway running into the interior of the country was also constructed parallel to the existing 03/21 runway at a length of 3,800 metres.
All these measures led to a growth in passenger volume to around 3.5 million per year until, on 13 July 2006, during selective Israeli attacks, the infrastructure necessary for flying operations was once again severely damaged. Although Middle East Airlines (MEA) was able to resume its first flights within only a month, in the three months after the bombardment the airport lost one-third of its passengers. This occurred just at the summer peak and led to a painful 17 percent decrease for the year as a whole. Again, the present military clashes in the north of the country are raising fears that the 15 to 20 percent rate of annual passenger growth achieved over the last five years will give way once more to a decline.
Despite this, as Dr. Hamdi Chaouk explained in an interview with FLUG REVUE, the airport is hoping that the upswing will continue. “A solid base of 80% Lebanese travellers who are highly resilient and deeply rooted to their country essentially ensures that passenger levels recover very quickly following problems of this kind.” It is in these passengers and the second large group of travellers, from the Gulf States and the rest of the Arab world, that Dr Chaouk sees the foundation on which further growth of the airport will be built.
To facilitate this trend, in 2002 the Lebanese Parliament passed the new, liberalised Lebanese Aviation Regulations (LAR), and the corresponding statutory orders followed in 2004. They were developed in collaboration with the ICAO in the interests of opening Lebanon up to all the international airlines. The new law had the effect of creating two pillars in the form of the Civil Aviation Authority as autonomous authority and a private operator, on which the future civil air travel of Lebanon would be founded. However, confirmation of the Board of Directors of the Civil Aviation Authority by the Cabinet, which is required to put the final seal on this legislation, is still missing. But, given the current prevailing political situation, it is not clear when this will be rectified. This reflects the difficult situation of the airport in such a political environment.
Despite the absence of the final administrative act, the law has already had a number of effects on civil aviation in Lebanon. It led, for example, to the privatisation of a wide range of activities at the airport, such as the fuel supply, ground services, catering, maintenance and the duty-free shops. Further financial resources from private investors flowed into the airlines, resulting in the foundation of eight new charter airlines. It is hoped that the introduction of three different blacklists, which differentiate between aircraft type, company and country of origin, will improve flight security.
The most important innovation was the introduction of an Open Skies policy at the beginning of 2002 which, following a liberal approach, grants all airlines flying to Lebanon total freedom in the skies without asking for reciprocal rights in return. This resulted in considerable annual growth in passenger numbers of 25% per year.
As well as boosting the attractions of Lebanon as a travel destination for new airlines, these steps are also intended to increase the proportion of transfer passengers. In Dr. Chaouk's view, with its favourable geographic position between Africa and the Middle East, Beirut provides a more practical link between these two regions since it obviates the need for a detour over the European continent. And linked with this is the hope that in this way Lebanon will regain its historic importance in these trade relations.
As a pioneer of this approach, Royal Air Maroc is already using the Fifth Freedom of air travel in flying its passengers to Dubai via Beirut. And coming from Europe, British Airways uses this city by the Mediterranean as an intermediate stop en route to Sudan. During the stopover, passengers can avail themselves of extensive shopping opportunities in the terminal.
In this way, over the next ten years the six million passengers per year which are feasible with the present terminal should be achieved, to be followed by a possible further stage of the expansion programme to raise capacity to twelve million passengers. The plans for this are already formulated, but on present thinking this will have to wait for at least four or five years.
In contrast to the growing passenger numbers, the figures for freight passing through Beirut airport are somewhat inconsistent. In line with the size of the country, the volume of cargo is relatively low. Freighter planes land only seldom at the airport, as the majority of goods are carried in the holds of passenger aircraft flying on scheduled flights.
In the long term, Dr. Chaouk believes that as many as 35 million passengers would be feasible, as the airport has already proved in the past that it can develop quickly once things get going.. This he attributes to its “strong financial and social base, but also human and geographic factors”. The Lebanese people, according to Chaouk, are fighters, and he is equally convinced that this small country possesses everything necessary to return once more to its former strong position of the past. But this would require a return to stability, the most important precondition to a strong upswing in this difficult region of the Middle East.
From page 90 of FLUG REVUE 10/2007
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