British Airways' franchise partner, Mediterranean Airways, will increase its services to Aleppo, Syria, starting April 1, 2002, as part of its Summer 2002 schedule. The non-stop flights will depart London Heathrow three times weekly—on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays—returning from Aleppo on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The extra flights were added to make weekend breaks in Syria’s second largest city a possibility. The airlines’ flights to Aleppo commenced in June 2000. Mediterranean Airways’ Summer 2002 schedule features further increases to services to Alexandria, Addis Ababa, Bishkek and Yerevan.
Established in 1994 as a limited company, British Mediterranean Airways (BMed) is an independent long haul franchise partner of British Airways (BA) plc since 1997. Under the Joint franchise partnership agreement, BA withdrew its services to Beirut, Damascus and Amman, leaving BMed as the sole British carrier serving those routes.
Figures for the financial year ending March 2001 show 211,500 passengers carried overall by BMed, an increase of 24 percent from 171,000 passengers in the previous year. Most successful routes were Bishkek up 77 percent to 9,600 passengers and Alexandria up 65 percent to 10,800 passengers.
Bmed’s fleet is made up entirely of Airbus A320-200 aircraft. The airline serves the following destinations: Beirut (Lebanon), Amman (Jordan), Damascus and Aleppo (Syria), Alexandria (Egypt), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Tbilisi (Georgia), Yerevan (Armenia), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Baku (Azerbaijan) and Tehran (Tehran). — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
