Syrian Arab Airlines

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Syrian Arab Airlines
Syrian Arab Airlines logo
Airbus A320-200 of Syrian Arab Airlines
IATA code : RB
ICAO code : SYR
Call sign : SYRIANAIR
Founding: 1961
Seat: Damascus , SyriaSyriaSyria 
Operational bases:

Home airport : Damascus
IATA prefix code : 070
Management: Ghaida Abdullatif ( CEO )
Frequent Flyer Program : Syrian Air Frequent Flyer
Fleet size: 10
Aims: National and international
Website: www.syriaair.com

Syrian Arab Airlines ( Arabic مؤسسة الطيران العربية السورية, DMG muʾassasat aṭ-ṭayarān al-ʿarabiyya as-sūriyya ), or Syrianair for short ( Arabic السورية, DMG as-Sūriyya ), is the national airline of the Syrian Arab Republic , based in Damascus .

history

On December 21, 1946, the airline was founded as Syrian Airways . The first flights took place in June 1947 and served the airports in Damascus, Aleppo, Deir ez-Zor and Qamishli. Due to financial difficulties, the flights were stopped in May 1948, but resumed in 1951 with government subsidies. In the following years the company expanded and also flew to Beirut, Baghdad and Jerusalem, and later Cairo, Kuwait and Doha were added. The fleet was expanded by three Douglas DC-3s in 1952 and four DC-4s in 1957 . Between 1953 and 1954, flight operations had to be briefly stopped because the license was withdrawn after a crash (see section Incidents ).

In February 1958, Syria and Egypt merged to form the United Arab Republic . Accordingly, Syrian Airways merged with the Egyptian airline MisrAir and henceforth operated under the name United Arab Airlines . Apart from increased flights between Cairo and Damascus, nothing has changed for passengers. When Syria left the United Arab Republic in 1961, the airlines were also separated again. In October 1961, the successor company to the former Syrian Airways was re-established under the name Syrian Arab Airlines . This is still a state company today . In the following years, the route network was expanded and flights to Athens , Munich , Rome , Paris and London in the west and Sharjah , Dubai and Tehran in the east were added to the flight plan.

Syrian Arab Airlines was a founding member of the Arab Air Carriers Organization and joined IATA in 1967 . In the following years she flew to more and more airports and enlarged the fleet. In 1973 flight operations had to be suspended for several weeks due to the Yom Kippur War . In the same year, the new Damascus Airport opened and has served Syrian Arab Airlines as a hub ever since .

As a result of the sanctions imposed on Syria by the United States , the European Union and other states since 2009 , which were further tightened in the course of the civil war there, Syrianair came to the brink of existence. According to government information, the airline carried a total of 1.3 million passengers in 2007, two years later the number of passengers had already fallen by more than 45%. Finally, as part of the sanctions, on July 23, 2012, the European Union imposed a flight and landing ban on Syrian Arab Airlines . Since then, the mere purchase of airline tickets has been a criminal offense in the EU; except for tickets booked for the purpose of evacuation from Syria. Switzerland also imposed such a ban in August 2012.

Due to the economic embargoes affecting Syria , it is neither possible for Syrianair to buy new aircraft from the major manufacturers nor to acquire spare parts for the existing fleet in order to guarantee sufficient flight operations. As a result, the maintenance backlog of the remaining, on average, seventeen-year-old Airbus A320-200s became so large that none of the company's larger passenger aircraft could be used at all in 2016. Because of the embargo, a used Airbus A340 had to be delivered to Syria in spring 2017 via Kazakhstan (where the aircraft was newly registered) and Chad . The plan is to fly to China, Brazil, India and Russia by plane in the future.

Destinations

In 2011 Syrian Arab Airlines served 57 destinations in the Middle East as well as in Europe , North Africa and India , but by 2014 their traffic was limited to only a few short routes in the region. He was largely discontinued in mid-2016. In 2018, the Syrian Arab Airlines served cities in the Near and Middle East, North Africa and Moscow.

Syrianair also has codeshare agreements with Austrian Airlines , Cyprus Airways , Royal Jordanian , Saudi Arabian Airlines , Iberia , Turkish Airlines and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines .

fleet

At the beginning of March 2016, YK-AKA was the airline's last Airbus A320-200 still in service.

Current fleet

Syrianair Boeing 727-200
Syrianair Boeing 747SP

As of March 2020, the Syrian Arab Airlines fleet consists of ten aircraft with an average age of 18.5 years:

Aircraft type number ordered Remarks Seats
Airbus A320-200 6th four inactive 150
Airbus A340-300 1 295
300
Airbus A340-600 1
ATR 72-500 2 inactive 70
total 10 -

As a result of the economic sanctions affecting Syria, only one of the company's larger passenger aircraft is said to have been operational at times in the spring of 2016. The only A340 aircraft active in 2017/2018 came to Syria in 2017 via Kazakhstan and a "technically necessary" landing in Iran from Tehran to Syria, circumventing western sanctions.

Former aircraft types

Previously, Syrian Arab Airlines also operated the following types of aircraft: In mid-2016, Dassault Falcon 20 and Dassault Falcon 900 machines and a Eurocopter Dauphin were added to the fleet.

Incidents

  • On February 24, 1956, a Douglas DC-3 operated by Syrian Airways (YK-AAE) crashed after a lightning strike and two-sided engine failure, 24 kilometers from Aleppo airport . The machine was on a flight to Damascus . With 19 deaths, this crash was the worst accident in the company's history.
  • On September 20, 2012, an Airbus A320-200 collided with a Syrian military helicopter at an altitude of around 3,600 m on its way from Damascus to Latakia. As a result, the vertical tail was badly damaged, but the machine was able to land safely in Damascus again, while the crew of four of the military helicopter did not survive the collision.
  • On October 10, 2012, an Airbus A320-200 was intercepted by Turkish F-16 fighter planes and forced to land at Ankara Airport. The Airbus was on its way from Moscow to Damascus. The Turkish authorities suspected that there were weapons on board. After the aircraft search, the authorities' suspicions were confirmed. The passenger plane was allowed to continue flying 8 hours later with 35 passengers, but without the illegal cargo.

See also

Web links

Commons : Syrian Air  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ The company's website has apparently not been maintained for a long time, because in 2010 it was still between 900,000 and 1,000,000 passengers per year, for international flights alone. This information was still there unchanged in 2016 (see History ( Memento of the original from April 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . From syriaair.com, first accessed on November 26, 2010, last on June 3, 2016). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.syriaair.com
  2. ↑ The economic misery of Syrianair also became the subject of propaganda statements by Syrian civil war camps. The embargo and the situation-related high risk (and the associated restriction) to air traffic over Syrian territory were of course not worth considering or mentioning in this context. Instead, the ruling Baath party blamed the airline's (mis) management for the company's situation, while opposition groups claimed that Bashar al-Assad himself had caused the demise of Syrianair , the Syrian airline Cham Wings Airlines his cousin Rami Machluf (who only has two Airbus A320-200s in service, with which she has only been serving short-haul destinations sporadically since 2014). (See Albin Szakola: Last active SyrianAir passenger jet breaks down . On March 2, 2016 on now.mmedia.me, as well as websites linked from there)
  3. ↑ As of January 2006 these were Aleppo , Damascus , Deir ez-Zor , Qamishli and Latakia in Syria as well as internationally Abu Dhabi , Algiers , Amman , Amsterdam , Athens , Baghdad , Bahrain , Barcelona , Beirut , Belgrade , Benghazi , Berlin , Brussels , Budapest , Bucharest , Casablanca , Jeddah , Dammam , Delhi , Doha , Dubai , Yerevan , Frankfurt am Main , Helsinki , Istanbul , Cairo , Karachi , Khartoum , Copenhagen , Kuwait , Kiev , Larnaka , London , Madrid , Manchester , Marseille , Milan , Moscow , Mumbai , Munich , Muscat , Paris , Prague , Riyadh , Rome , Sanaa , Sharjah , Sofia , Stockholm , Tehran , Tripoli , Tunis and Vienna .
  4. ↑ Advertised flights according to website, accessed on June 4, 2016:
    Flights schedule to Arabian Gulf, Al Najaf, Baghdad - 27-03-2016
    Flights schedule to Amman, Cairo, Bairut - 01-11-2014
    Flights schedule to Najaf, Baghdad , Tehran - 01-11-2014
  5. ↑ See also aircraft data: Airbus A320 - MSN 886 - YK-AKA . Retrieved June 4, 2016 from syriaair.com

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Syrian Arab Airlines الخطوط الجوية السورية . Retrieved June 4, 2016 from arabaviation.com
  2. ^ Leonard Bridgman (Ed.): Jane's All The World's Aircraft, 1952-53. Sampson Low, Marston & Company, London 1952. (English)
  3. ^ A b Edwin Lane: bbc.co.uk Syrian flag carrier struggles to keep flying . On February 11, 2011 on bbc.co.uk
  4. ↑ EU prepares for Syria without Assad . On July 23, 2012 on de.reuters.com
  5. ↑ Syria: Travel Warning . Accessed on July 15, 2014 at Auswaertiges-amt.de
  6. ^ Swiss target more Syrian firms and individuals . On August 14, 2012 on swissinfo.ch
  7. ^ Syrian Arab Airlines fleet details - Airline fleet age . Retrieved March 2, 2016 from airfleets.net
  8. ↑ Albin Szakola: Last active Syrian Air passenger jet breaks down . On March 2, 2016 on now.mmedia.me
  9. ↑ aerotelegraph.com - Syrian national airline procures A340 , accessed on May 1, 2017
  10. ↑ Cham Wings Airlines fleet details - Airline fleet age . Retrieved March 2, 2016 from airfleets.net
  11. ↑ Offers ( Memento of the original from June 21, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved June 4, 2016 from syriaair.com @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.syriaair.com
  12. ^ Syria Air: Destination. Retrieved September 19, 2018 .
  13. ↑ Stefan Eiselin: Syrian Air has hardly any airplanes left . On March 2, 2016 on aerotelegraph.com
  14. ↑ The last two A340s operated by Olympic Airlines are flying again , austrianwings, March 8, 2017
  15. ↑ Sanctions Busting, SyrianAir acquires A340 passenger jet via Iran , defensenews, August 2017
  16. ^ Ulrich Klee and Frank Bucher et al .: jp airline-fleets international . Zurich Airport, annual editions 1966 to 2007
  17. ↑ Syriaair.com, Fleet , accessed June 3, 2016
  18. ^ Syrian Arab Airlines fleet details - Boeing 747 Stored with Syrian Arab Airlines . Retrieved March 2, 2016 from airfleets.net
  19. ^ Accident report DC-3 YK-AAF , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on June 7, 2020.
  20. ↑ Air-Britain Archive: Casualty compendium part 66 (English), September 1997, pp. 97/84.
  21. ^ Accident report DC-3 YK-AAE , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on June 7, 2020.
  22. ↑ Simon Hradecky: Accident: Syrian Arab A320 near Damascus on Sep 20th 2012, mid air collision with helicopter . On October 2, 2012 on avherald.com
  23. ↑ The aircraft had military equipment for Syria on board. tagesschau.de, archived from the original on October 11, 2012 ; accessed on June 3, 2016 .