Back at the airport I caught up with Jordan, who had just arrived on a Air France flight from Paris.

Check-in for our Libyan Wings flight to Tunis opened just after 1pm.


Tripoli's Mitiga Airport had been closed for the previous two days after battles between competing militia's in the nearby Al-Ghrarat district. During the fighting a Libyan Airlines A330 was also damaged by stray gunfire.

Libyan Airlines had hence subsequently suspended flights to and from Tunis due to their grounded A330, and we were hence fortunate that Libyan Wings aircraft had not been affected by the battles and our flight today was operating as scheduled.

After successfully checking in we grabbed a quick snack before passing through immigration and security.


The Libyan Wings Airbus waiting at the gate. Libyan Wings is a privately owned Libyan Airline with a fleet of two A319's that fly three times daily between Tripoli and Tunis, and once daily between Tripoli and Istanbul.


In our exit row seats shortly after take-off. After the earlier failed attempts to visit Libya it felt great to finally realise that I might actually succeed!


A small but quite impressive meal served on the one hour flight.


Our approach into Tripoli was uneventful and we were soon on the ground and taxiing to the terminal. On the way we passed quite a few derelict Soviet-era military aircraft including a MiG-25. It was quite exciting to finally see one in real life, as they are one of the few aircraft built primarly from stainless steel (to cope with the high temperatures experienced with flying at speeds close to Mach 3).

Disembarking at a remote stand next to an Afriqiyah Airways A319 that had just arrived from Khartoum.


After the bus dropped us at the main terminal we went inside to join the queue for immigration. There was a queue for foreigners that was unfortunately quite long with the recent flight from Sudan. While the line for Libyans went quite quickly, our queue moved very slowly and it took us over an hour before we were finally stamped into the country.

After immigration we were asked briefly our purpose for our visit to Libya. Myself and Jordan were travelling on business visa's organised by the travel agency and visiting Libya as 'engineers'. As Jordan worked as a software engineer and myself as a chemical engineer, we both just stated as such when we were asked what types of engineers we were.

Jordan and his bag made it through the X-ray machine ok however I was pulled aside when they spotted my DSLR camera. When I was asked if I had a permit for it, I said it was just for personal use, but they still weren't satisfied and asked who was meeting us at the airport.

Our escort, Salem, was luckily waiting for us and after he exchanged some words with the airport official we were on our way and off to our hotel in the city centre along with our guide Yousuf.