Louis hotel chain, Cyprus (photo: chain website)
While the skies to the east are opening with Israeli flights passing over Saudi Arabia and Oman, it is precisely in the north that they are beginning to close: the Lebanese government has banned TUS Airways, the largest airline in Cyprus, from flying through Lebanese airspace, because half of the company is Israeli-owned , according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Lebanon, which issued the ban last Friday.
TUS was established in 2015, shortly after the liquidation of "Cyprus Airways" and although it only has five Airbus A320 aircraft, the company is officially the largest airline in Cyprus.
Although the main base of the airline is in the center of Larnaca, TUS mainly focuses on flights to and from Israel.
In a statement published by the National News Agency of Lebanon, the Director General of the Aviation Authority, Fadi Al-Hassan, said that the ban on flying over the country's airspace was issued because the Israeli company "Kenpaim Holdings" now owns 49.9% of the shares of TUS Airways. As you remember, Lebanon sees Israel is an 'enemy state', and the state imposed an economic embargo on us since 1955.
You will not be able to fly over Lebanon because of Israeli ownership.
TUS Airways (Photo: Elad Weinstein)
The company is in violation of the Israel boycott law
"We have decided to prevent the Cypriot company TUS from flying in Lebanon's airspace and prevent it from landing at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport until further notice," al-Hassan said on Friday.
Lebanon learned that TUS has half Israeli ownership only after the Cypriot Civil Aviation Authority informed its Lebanese counterpart that the airline was nominated to provide air services between the two countries under a 2017 bilateral agreement. Al-Hassan said
his department conducted routine research on the Internet. and discovered that TUS was partially owned by a company based in Israel, which put it in violation of the Israel Boycott Law.
Last year, TUS made history when it operated the first commercial flight between Israel and Qatar to bring Israeli soccer fans to the World Cup held in Doha.
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