Aircraft at Ben Gurion International airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, 26 August 2024. EPA-EFE/ABIR SULTAN Many Western carriers cancelled flights to swaths of the Middle East in recent months, including Beirut and Tel Aviv, as conflict tore across the region. Airlines also avoided Iraqi and Iranian airspace out of fear of getting accidentally caught in drone or missile warfare.
RyanairRYA.I said it was hoping to run a full summer schedule to and from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv in an interview with Reuters last week, before the ceasefire deal was announced.
In the wake of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Turkish AirlinesTHYAO.IS said it would start flights to Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Jan. 23, with three flights per week.
But airlines remain cautious and watchful before re-entering the region in full, they said.
The suspension of Lufthansa flights to and from Tehran up to and including Feb. 14 remains in place and the airline will not fly to Beirut in Lebanon up to and including Feb. 28, it said.
(Writing by Madeline Chambers and Joanna Plucinska; editing by Matthias Williams and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)