Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport

Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport is the only operational commercial airport in Lebanon and the country's sole international gateway, serving the capital Beirut and the entire Lebanese population of roughly 5.3M plus a globally distributed diaspora of similar scale that treats BEY as a critical seasonal lifeline. Located 5.6 mi (9 km) south of downtown Beirut at 87 ft (27 m) elevation on the Mediterranean coast, the airport handles 97 routes across 62 destinations through 37 airlines. Renamed in 2005 after assassinated Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, BEY occupies a strategically confined site between the sea, the suburb of Khalde, and Beirut's densely urbanized southern districts. Middle East Airlines (MEA) — the national flag carrier and one of the oldest airlines in the Middle East, founded in 1945 — operates BEY as its sole hub with a fleet of Airbus narrowbody and widebody aircraft, flying to Europe, the Gulf, Africa, and intermittently across the Atlantic. Foreign carriers providing regular service include Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, flydubai, Etihad, Saudia, Air France, Lufthansa, Royal Jordanian, Egyptair, Gulf Air, Kuwait Airways, Cyprus Airways, Aegean, Pegasus, ITA Airways, LOT, Corendon, Tunisair, Air Arabia, Air Algerie, Ethiopian, and Royal Air Maroc. Traffic is highly seasonal, peaking dramatically in July–August when Lebanese emigrants return for summer visits. The airfield has three long paved runways — 03/21 at 12,467 ft (3,800 m) in concrete, 16/34 at 11,138 ft (3,395 m) in concrete, and 17/35 at 10,663 ft (3,250 m) in asphalt — an unusually extensive runway complex for an airport of this passenger scale, partly reflecting Lebanon's historical role as a Mediterranean maintenance and transit hub and the Cold War-era infrastructure buildup. The single passenger terminal opened in 1998 to replace earlier facilities destroyed during the Lebanese Civil War, and a long-delayed terminal expansion to add a new satellite concourse has been intermittently advanced since 2018. BEY's operational continuity through repeated regional crises — including extended airspace restrictions and adjacent conflict — is one of the more remarkable stories in commercial aviation resilience.