By Ashraf Abdul-Wahab.
Tripoli, 31 July 2014:
Egypt’s airports and aviation authorities are in a heightened state of alert over possible unauthorised flights coming . . .[restrict]from Libya as concerns increase about elements having seized control of aircraft at Tripoli International Airport.
The Egyptian authorities raised their airports’ security to the maximum state of alert and placed radar and air defences on notice to monitor movements of any aircraft from Libya entering Egyptian airspace without permission and prior submission of flight plans.
Their fear, apparently, is that militants might use aircraft to crash them into targets in Egypt although Libyan Airlines say that none of its aircraft has been seized.
After scrambling to open Tripoli’s Mitiga Airport and divert some flights to Misrata International Airport, several flights a day are now operating in and out of western Libya. At Misrata’s airport various airlines are flying to and from Tunisia, Istanbul, Cairo and Alexandria on a daily basis.
Libyan Airlines has daily flights between Mitiga and Cairo and three weekly flights between Mitiga and Alexandria. They are also operating several flights a week between Labraq Airport, in eastern Libya, and Cairo and Alexandria.
The airline says that its planes are not completely full yet, only at 75 percent capacity. This is partly due to the fact that neither Labraq nor Mitiga seem set up yet to process entries for foreign passport holders. [/restrict]
