Originally Posted by jimrpa
I'm glad to see that DL is doing this, but I still don't understand why they're messing around with ships and Cyprus? You'd think they'd just send all the people out of Lebanon to Israel and Televiv where they have an airport with good air service. I know there's conflict in the area between Lebanon and Israel, but can't the Israelis/UN/Red Cross just declare an evacuation route and not fire on people on the route?
Easier (and better) to have the route to Damascus/Syria made the route to get people out than to try a surface route to Israel and then an aerial one out -- especially since the Israeli government and a good part of Lebanon's state and non-state actors wouldn't allow for a general evacuation route right through the Israeli border; and if it were allowed and any one party had decided to make life even more miserable for those trying to leave, that route would be the one that would be the most dangerous around for people on both sides of the border.
For a variety of reasons going via Syria is the one that the various governments don't prefer, but it's been the easiest for most of my friends and avoiding Cyprus saved time and spared further discomfort. That said, it's not a fast trip to Syria either right now despite the Syrian government and many individual Syrians rolling out the welcome wagon for those who are rushing out of Lebanon to get elsewhere. Also a lot of non-Lebanese state actors don't want people relying even more upon Syria.
Syria has opened up military and commercial airports to relief flights (including by militaries from quite the number of countries from far-flung places) and that's how most of my friends and associates are getting out. If the regional players allow for that "road through Damascus" (and the rest of Syria) option to remain (even as poor as it now is), that would be easiest in the nearer-term and much faster/more "comfortable" for more. However, it's still Cyprus that is the most common immediate destination for even those relief flights from Syria's commercial and military airports. And going by copter and/or boat to Cyprus is the one our government seems to fancy most. In any event, DL will be picking up a few more customers at BWI.