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MEA Reserves 5 Aircraft In Turkey As Conflict Precaution
Flights continue as normal, but Middle East Airlines staff are on standby in case more of the fleet needs to be relocated.
Lebanese carrier Middle East Airlines (MEA) has chosen to relocate 5 of its 24 aircraft to Turkey as hostilities mount in Israel and Gaza.
So far, scheduled flights have not been affected by heightened regional tensions, despite Palestinian militants from Hamas clashing with IDF forces in what is now the deadliest conflict since 2006.
A spokesperson from MEA said the planes had been moved to Istanbul airport over the weekend and would remain there for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the remaining 19 aircraft in the fleet are operating normally.
Middle East Airlines staff are also on standby to implement an emergency plan to move the rest of the airliners if the situation worsens.
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“It’s a plan in case of an emergency. God willing, we won’t need it,” explained the MEA spokesperson.
Back in 2006, the Lebanese carrier diverted all its planes from Beirut airport at the start of the month-long 2006 war, which was responsible for the deaths of 1,200 Lebanese citizens. The airport was later bombed, rendering it inoperable.
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Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
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The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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