Western Airlines Resume Flights to the Middle East

The German airline group Lufthansa announced on Thursday, January 17, that it will resume its flights to Tel Aviv in Israel starting February 1 (February 13). Previously, the airline Wizz Air had also resumed its flights from London to Tel Aviv on January 16 (January 27). Many airlines in Western countries had canceled their flights to various regions in the Middle East, including Beirut and Tel Aviv, in recent months due to rising tensions and conflicts across the region. Many airlines also avoided flying in the airspace of Iran and Iraq due to concerns over potential incidents involving drones or missiles. Wizz Air also resumed its flights to Amman in Jordan from London Luton Airport on January 16 (January 27). Airlines including Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Austrian Airlines, and Swiss participated in the decision by the Lufthansa group to resume flights to Tel Aviv. Ryanair had previously told Reuters that it hoped to resume a full summer schedule from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv before the recent ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, Turkish Airlines also announced that it would start flights to Damascus, the capital of Syria, on January 23 (February 4) with three flights a week. According to this report, airlines have stated that the resumption of their flights to the Middle East will be cautious and careful. Air France-KLM announced that flights to Tel Aviv would remain suspended until January 24 (February 5), but the suspension of flights to Beirut will continue until January 31 (February 12). The company stated that the decision to resume flights would be made after assessing the situation on the ground in the region. Lufthansa's suspension of flights to Tehran will remain in effect until February 14 (February 26), and the airline will not operate flights to Beirut until February 28 (March 10). After Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines will also begin flights to Damascus, although Syria has not granted permission for flights; flights from Iran have been canceled until January 22. The latest status of flights in the Middle East coincides with increasing concerns about the outbreak of regional war, including the suspension of Qatar Airways flights to Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, and the suspension of British Airways flights to Israel amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East.