Middle East Airlines

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Middle East Airlines (in Arabic: طيران الشرق الأوسط) is an airline based in Lebanon. It flies between the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

Contents

[edit] History

An MEA Airbus A330-200
An MEA Airbus A330-200

The Middle East Airlines opened for business on May 31, 1945. It was done so by Saeb Salam, with support from BOAC. MEA's work started on January 1, 1946 with a service between Beirut and Nicosia. Then, its airplanes started to fly to Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and Cyprus. The company bought two Douglas DC-3 planes in mid-1946.

On September 7, 2006, Israel ended its 8-week long air blockade on Lebanon. A Middle East Airlines plane from Paris flew to the Rafik Hariri International Airport at 6:06 p.m. Lebanese time (3:03 p.m. GMT). MEA resumed its normal flight timetable on September 11, 2006.

[edit] Destinations

Middle East Airlines flies its planes to these countries and their cities (since June 2006):

[edit] Africa

[edit] Asia

[edit] Europe

An MEA Airbus A330-200 at Roissy Airport in France
An MEA Airbus A330-200 at Roissy Airport in France

[edit] New routes

With the beginning of its new Spring 2006 timetable, MEA has been flying to these cities very often:

  • Frankfurt - 3x weekly (4x weekly in the summer) to 4x weekly (5x weekly in the summer)
  • Riyadh - 5x weekly to 6x weekly