The airline Middle East Airlines has started to take its fleet out of the country. Some machines were transferred to Istanbul overnight. The company wants to bring the fleet to safety due to the tense situation in the Middle East.

Several airlines, including the Lufthansa Group and Condor, have already temporarily suspended their flights to/from Beirut. Those responsible currently consider it unsafe to travel to destinations in Lebanon. The background is that the Israeli Air Force attacks objects that are assigned to Hezbollah.

It has been firing rockets into Israeli territory for some time. There are fears that the war launched by Hamas could spread. Middle East Airlines saw an acute need for action and initially flew one Airbus A330-200 and four Airbus A321neo to Istanbul. These are the machines with the registrations OD-MEB, T7-ME3, T7-ME4, and T7-ME5, which were transferred overnight. The T7-ME2 set off for Istanbul in the early morning of October 18, 2024.

It is expected that the carrier will very soon take the rest of the fleet out of the country in order to protect it from any damage caused by war and/or combat operations. The company does not provide any information in this regard, only confirms that some aircraft are temporarily parked in Turkey for safety reasons.