{"id":4473,"date":"2018-05-03T13:02:36","date_gmt":"2018-05-03T17:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/?p=4473"},"modified":"2020-05-07T12:43:02","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T16:43:02","slug":"who-is-still-flying-over-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/who-is-still-flying-over-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is still flying over Syria?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We have reported recently on the <a href=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/what-we-know-about-the-syria-strike\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">complex airspace picture and dangers associated with the ongoing Syrian conflict<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Most major carriers have taken the advice of numerous government agencies to avoid Syrian airspace altogether; the <a href=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/what-we-know-about-the-syria-strike\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FAA going as far<\/a> as calling on all operators flying within 200 nautical miles of the OSTT\/Damascus FIR to \u201cexercise caution\u201d. \u00a0Today, the only airlines flying over the airspace are locally based Syrian airlines, Iraq Airlines and Lebanon\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mea.com.lb\/english\/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Middle Eastern Airlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4479\" src=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Screen-Shot-2018-05-02-at-21.47.39-300x196.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Screen-Shot-2018-05-02-at-21.47.39-300x196.png 300w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Screen-Shot-2018-05-02-at-21.47.39-768x500.png 768w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Screen-Shot-2018-05-02-at-21.47.39-1024x667.png 1024w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Screen-Shot-2018-05-02-at-21.47.39-676x441.png 676w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Screen-Shot-2018-05-02-at-21.47.39.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><strong>These MEA overflights are of interest.<\/strong> The airline is a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skyteam.com\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SkyTeam<\/a> alliance and has codeshare agreements with several high-profile airlines (Air Canada, Air France, etc.) Despite the repeated warnings of the ongoing dangers associated with overflights of this conflict zone, the airline has chosen to schedule more than half-a-dozen flights over the airspace each day.<\/p>\n<p>Some of these flights have the usual <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Codeshare_agreement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">codeshare<\/a> practise of other airlines booking their passengers on MEA flights. Our research shows that Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oneworld.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oneworld Alliance<\/a>) and Royal Jordanian Airlines (Oneworld Alliance) passengers are still being booked on MEA flights to\/from Beirut; likely unbeknown to their customers of the increased flight risk. All three airlines continue to service Beirut with their own aircraft, but all three avoid Syrian airspace, naturally accepting the best advice to avoid the area completely.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-4489 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/SYRIA-OVERFLIGHTS-1024x539.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"676\" height=\"356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/SYRIA-OVERFLIGHTS-1024x539.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/SYRIA-OVERFLIGHTS-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/SYRIA-OVERFLIGHTS-768x404.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/SYRIA-OVERFLIGHTS-676x356.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-4490 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/FLIGHTS-COLLAGE-1024x341.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"676\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/FLIGHTS-COLLAGE-1024x341.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/FLIGHTS-COLLAGE-300x100.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/FLIGHTS-COLLAGE-768x256.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/FLIGHTS-COLLAGE-676x225.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Something isn&#8217;t right here: n<\/em><em>o warning anywhere about these flights being flown over Syria.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>So why is it safe for passengers to overfly Syria on an MEA flight, but not on any of the other airlines?\u00a0And more importantly, why is MEA still operating over Syria anyway?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It looks like Kuwait Airways will be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mea.com.lb\/english\/about-us\/news-and-press-releases\/-code-share-flights-between-kuwait-and-beirut\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the next codeshare partner<\/a> of MEA, so it will be interesting to see whether the issue of the overflight of conflict zones will be discussed.<\/p>\n<p>As always, keep an eye on our <a href=\"http:\/\/safeairspace.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Safeairspace<\/a> map for the latest worldwide updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have reported recently on the complex airspace picture and dangers associated with the ongoing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":4494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,319,876],"tags":[131,1111,74,1112,856,783,446],"class_list":{"0":"post-4473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-briefings","8":"category-news-item","9":"category-safe-airspace","10":"tag-beirut","11":"tag-etihad","12":"tag-faa","13":"tag-mea","14":"tag-qatar","15":"tag-safe-airspace","16":"tag-syria"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4473"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9730,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4473\/revisions\/9730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ops.group\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}