For 41 years, no American plane landed in Beirut. That could finally change

Aviation routes are usually lost to economics. This one was lost to history. The connection between the United States and Lebanon disappeared in the shadow of one of the most infamous airline hijackings of the 1980s and outlived presidents, wars, peace agreements and the rise and fall of entire airlines.

Generations of Lebanese-Americans grew accustomed to reaching their homeland through Paris, Istanbul, Doha or Dubai, while direct flights between the United States and Lebanon became part of aviation history rather than commercial reality.

However, that may now be changing.

Following a White House meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, US President Donald Trump announced that he had directed his administration to allow American carriers to resume direct flights to Lebanon for the first time since 1985, calling on other countries to follow suit.

The decision marks the first political move towards reopening an air corridor that has remained closed for more than four decades, even as aviation transformed around it.

Yet the announcement is less a green light than the removal of a red light, as no airline has yet committed to flying the route.

The Federal Aviation Administration must still complete security assessments at Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport, the US Department of Transportation must approve operations, and airlines must decide whether a route into one of the Middle East's most politically volatile markets makes commercial sense.

Nevertheless, the significance stretches well beyond aviation.

The United States is home to one of the world's largest Lebanese diasporas, estimated at between half a million and well over a million people, many of whom have never had the option of flying directly to Beirut.

The flight that changed everything

Before the route disappeared, Beirut was a regular destination for major American airlines.

During the city's years as one of the Middle East's busiest commercial and financial centres, both Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) and Trans World Airlines (TWA) operated scheduled services, linking Lebanon directly with the United States through an international network that reflected Beirut's status as the region's aviation gateway.

That era ended abruptly on 14 June 1985, when TWA Flight 847 took off from Athens bound for Rome, carrying 145 passengers and 8 crew.

Minutes after departure, armed hijackers seized the aircraft and forced it to divert to Beirut, setting in motion a 17-day hostage crisis that would transform US-Lebanon aviation links for a generation.

The aircraft was shuttled repeatedly between Beirut and Algiers as negotiations unfolded.

During the ordeal, US Navy diver Robert Stethem was beaten, shot, and his body dumped on the airport tarmac. The remaining hostages were eventually released following regional and international mediation.

No organisation formally claimed responsibility. However, US investigations drawing on Department of Justice and FBI files concluded that Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh was the operation's principal planner. Investigators said he exploited security weaknesses at Athens airport to target a flight carrying a large number of American passengers.

They identified Mohammed Ali Hamadi and several associates as the hijackers, while armed militants waited for the aircraft after it landed in Beirut.

The hijackers demanded the release of hundreds of Lebanese prisoners held by Israel, particularly at Atlit prison.

In the aftermath, direct air links between the United States and Lebanon disappeared. 

Since then, passengers have reached Beirut via European, Turkish or Gulf hubs, turning what was once a routine route into a journey of connections.

For an entire generation of Lebanese-Americans, a direct flight became something remembered rather than experienced, and children born after 1985 have grown up knowing Beirut only as a destination reached after a stopover, not a nonstop journey.

Putting Lebanon back on the map

Captain Mohammed Aziz, who heads Lebanon's Civil Aviation Authority, calls the decision a significant political and economic shift.

"It removed the fundamental obstacle that blocked this route for more than four decades. But it does not mean flights resume immediately," he tells The New Arab. 

What comes next is technical and legal negotiation, beginning with the bilateral air transport agreement between Lebanon and the United States.

"The last amendment was in 1983," Aziz says. "It no longer matches the standards of the aviation industry today."

Beirut airport is technically ready to receive American flights, he says, with security at international standards and additional measures in place across several facilities to meet the requirements of this category of route.

But whether anyone actually flies remains tied to the economic feasibility studies each airline conducts, and to how many frequencies it judges viable.

Completing the agreements would also work in the other direction, allowing Middle East Airlines to operate direct services to the United States.

Qleiat airport in the north, he notes, is not currently equipped to handle the widebody aircraft such routes require.

Aziz calls the decision "a certificate of confidence" in Lebanon, with significance that extends beyond aviation.

"It reflects a change in how the world sees the level of stability and safety in this country," he tells The New Arab. "It puts Lebanon back on the direct air map with North America."

Restored service would cut journey times and costs for Lebanese in the United States and Canada, as well as for business travellers, students and investors, and competition among carriers should gradually lower fares.

The benefit would extend to air freight, he adds, since widebody aircraft carry substantial cargo, thereby reducing shipping costs for Lebanese exports to American and Canadian markets.

Jean Abboud, who heads the syndicate of travel and tourism agency owners, reads it similarly and puts a timeline on it: roughly a year, if conditions allow.

The route requires modern long-haul aircraft and heavy investment, Abboud says, and major carriers hold the advantage because their global networks feed passengers onto the line.

Viability ultimately depends on whether Lebanon can attract American tourists, from one of the world's largest outbound markets. He is direct about the condition attached to all of it.

"Peace and stability are the foundation," he says. "Without them this initiative will not last."

Four messages

Political analyst Alan Sarkis argues that the decision is political before it is commercial and reads it as one of several positive signals Washington is sending to the Lebanese state.

He identifies four: the United States supports the Lebanese state; it intends to deal with state institutions at a remove from Hezbollah's influence; steps Lebanon takes to restore its sovereignty will be met with American support; and progress on confining weapons to the state will be matched by further openness and cooperation.

"This is the first rain, not the end of the road," Sarkis tells The New Arab. It is tied, he adds, to further reform and sovereignty measures: extending state authority across the whole country, keeping Lebanon out of regional conflicts, and strengthening state control over vital facilities, foremost Rafic Hariri airport and its surroundings.

The economic dimension is real, he says, as an indicator that some of the political and economic restrictions on Lebanon are being lifted.

The Aoun and Trump meeting covered energy, infrastructure, and investment, with plans for Lebanese and American business figures to meet to discuss partnership opportunities.

His conclusion is that the significance lies not in the flights themselves but in the fact that they begin a process requiring follow-through from both governments.

Decades of connections

For the diaspora, the calculation is domestic.

Mounif Bazzi, a Lebanese trader who has lived in Michigan for thirty years, says expatriates have spent years dealing with indirect flights and the additional time and cost they impose, particularly for families.

"A direct flight shortens the journey and makes staying connected to Lebanon easier," he tells The New Arab. He reads it as a signal of confidence that may encourage more expatriates and business owners to visit and consider investing.

Zeinab Dabbouk, 40, who moved to New York ten years ago and is raising a family there, says the Lebanese community in the United States is among the largest and most active Arab diasporas, and has waited years for this.

Direct flights would reconnect thousands of Lebanese with their country and relieve the burden of long indirect journeys, while strengthening family and economic ties. The recent wars, she says, prevented her from visiting Lebanon with her family.

Yet Washington's announcement leaves the hardest questions unanswered.

A presidential directive can reopen the door to direct flights, but it cannot compel an airline to walk through it.

That decision rests with commercial carriers, which must weigh the costs and risks of launching a long-haul route into a country where the US State Department still advises Americans to reconsider travel.

Those calculations have become even more cautious in the wake of regional instability. 

Furthermore, before any American airline can begin operating to Beirut, the Federal Aviation Administration must complete a security assessment of Rafic Hariri International Airport to ensure it meets US counterterrorism and aviation standards, while the Department of Transportation must authorise the routes themselves.

Neither process is governed by a public timetable, leaving the political announcement in Washington separated from commercial reality by months of technical reviews, regulatory approvals and boardroom decisions.

In other words, what Trump announced was not the return of direct flights but the possibility of their return.

Whether that possibility becomes a scheduled service will depend as much on airline executives and security officials as on politicians in Washington or Beirut.

Aziz says that carriers will announce direct flights after economic planning and preparations, which generally take several months, whereas Abboud predicts a year.

Both are describing a corridor of intent rather than a schedule.

What Trump opened was a door. Whether anything comes through it will be settled in airline boardrooms, against a risk calculation that no announcement in Washington or readiness in Beirut can override.

Ali Awadah is a Lebanese journalist with bylines in several local outlets, focusing on human rights

This article is published in collaboration with Egab