MEA Middle East Airlines (ME/Cedarjet) Inaugural June 22nd!

[BrightCedars]

MEA Middle East Airlines (ME/Cedarjet) of Lebanon restarts Beirut-Brussels service tomorrow June 22nd!

The service will be nonstop 3 times a week on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and operated by Airbus A320 offering PTV's at all seats in all classes.

Rumor has it that the inaugural may be accompanied by news that the service will last beyond the Summer season currently slated to end on September 14. It could continue as a 2 weekly service afterwards.

A trip report will be offered later as I will personally be using the service this Summer for a hassle reduced travel experience between our two home cities.

[RoMax]

The route is operated by a A320 normally, but when I checked amadeus a week ago I can find more A321's than A320's. So I asume the route is succesfull, really succesfull and if that's the case MEA will probably operate year round. When they announced the route they said they would look at the summer bookings and than decide to operate seasonal or year round. And I think it will be year round. Maybe we will know more tomorrow.

[capetown]

Maybe slightly off topic, but just checking brussels airport website - no more Syrian flights to BEY ? And even no more Syrian flights at all at BRU ?

[RoMax]

Maybe slightly off topic, but just checking brussels airport website - no more Syrian flights to BEY ? And even no more Syrian flights at all at BRU ?

Don't relay too much on Brussels Airport website, but I have no idea about there operations. When I checked past week the MEA flights I've also seen flights of Syrian in amadeus.

[sdbelgium]

IIRC I saw Syrianair flights to Aleppo and Damascus somewhere last week. Could be that my memory is bailing on me, though.

[Mirror]

Anyone knows the parking position? Will the fire brigade welcome it ?

Thx

[nordikcam]

Syrian flight RB 427 arriving tomorrow at 5h40 AM coming from Alep and Damas regular flight !

[airbuske]

Anyone knows the parking position? Will the fire brigade welcome it ?

Thx

ME0215 STA 1750 ETA 1729
40 pax on board of the A320 Reg: OD-MRT
Position 205
Will leave BRU as ME216 at 1850 with 128 pax

[RoMax]

Anyone knows the parking position? Will the fire brigade welcome it ?

Thx

ME0215 STA 1750 ETA 1729
40 pax on board of the A320 Reg: OD-MRT
Position 205
Will leave BRU as ME216 at 1850 with 128 pax

According to wikipedia the A320's of MEA have only 126 seats... So is wikipedia wrong or is this 128 "crew included"?

[airbuske]

Yeah sorry 128 was the booking.
The A320 has indeed 126 seats.

[b720]

MEA BEY-BRU-BEY extended to winter 2010

flight time and days changed

BEY-BRU 1---4-6- Dep: 06:30 arr 10:00

BRU-BEY 1---4-6- Dep 11:00 arr 16:10

flights already open for bookings on www.mea.com.lb

[RoMax]

MEA BEY-BRU-BEY extended to winter 2010

flight time and days changed

BEY-BRU 1---4-6- Dep: 06:30 arr 10:00

BRU-BEY 1---4-6- Dep 11:00 arr 16:10

flights already open for bookings on http://www.mea.com.lb

No real suprise. MEA said they would look at the summer bookings to decide to operate in winter or not. And the summers bookings are really good (many upgrades to A321). That's probably the reason why they operate even 3 weekly flights during winter (the same as this summer) and no donwgrade to 2 weekly or something. I expect more frequenties in summer 2011 (4-5 maybe 6/weekly), because their flights are performing really good.

[b720]

and with the new schedule maybe codesharing with SN to africa? and AC to YUL..

[BrightCedars]

This is magnificient news and even better than expected!

I'm really looking forward to shuttling on this Cedar Express

I want to thank all the parties who have been pushing for this!

First flight is slated for next week's Tuesday as far as I'm concerned!

[sn26567]

and with the new schedule maybe codesharing with SN to africa?

Unlikely. ME is more in business with AF. SN should launch its own flight to Beirut in order to capture a part of the market.

[b720]

they just signed code share agreements with AC.. AC adds its flight numbers on ME LHR-BEY and

GVA-BEY runs.. ME on GVA-YUL and all direct flights of AC from LHR-to canada.. MEA seems to be

expanding its options outside AF and CDG. Besides MEA CEO had stated ealrier this year that MEA

was expanding its services to Africa by adding FIH to the destinations it serves directly from BEY and

possible expansion through BRU.

[BrightCedars]

A member of the family flew the route yesterday to join us for a few weeks.

She reports that the plane was far from full, she didn't notice how the rather large C section was occupied.

Some strange facts also:

- In Beirut, they were told that only 1 piece of luggage could go to the hold and that they had to carry their hand luggage on the plane. Usually it's not that much of a problem to send your hand luggage down to the hold with the rest.

- In flight, it seems the seats had no recline in Y. That is a bit weird, does anybody know if ME's latest A320's have some kind of no-recline shell seats?

- In Brussels, the plane was apparently parked remote and bussed which is kind of strange. It took quite some time for the bus to arrive and the luggage was delayed on delivery. Furthermore it was an extra burden for my rather aged passenger to have to carry the hand luggage all the way out.

My fear is that ME was over ambitious by setting up a 3 weekly Winter program after an of course successful Summer - they always are unless there is a eruption of violence. 2 weekly should have been enough (mid-week and week-end), perhaps the potential of the BEY-BRU-Africa link was overestimated. Or is it that as I mentioned it before, you need to advertise long before the service to raise awareness and avoid flying for some time with less than satisfactory loads.

So far there is nothing bookable beyond Mar. 26 and of course we have many needs from that date onwards.

I hope ME may try to cooperate with SN on the route BEY-BRU as they have already started something over Africa together. I would really not like to see them cut the route to a Summer only, or worse.

[b720]

the flights are not fully booked but about 60% full, which is not bad for october and november. I have flown the route 4 times since july, and just booked my fifth for november. On some days the flight is fully booked, Oct 30 for instance Bru-BEY only c class available..
As for the 320s indeed the seats can not recline, only the bottom part, not the back.. I think this is less annoying than pax in front of you reclining all the way back throughout the flight (including during meal service) and that is the case almost on every flight I took on MEA. The flights are quite punctual..as for arrival at BRU my experience at all times has been parking at gates B 03 or 05 a few meters away from passport control, and luggage area..possibly if the flight arrives ahead of schedule and the jetway is still occupied by previous flight ME is parked further away, last time we landed 09:50 instead of 10:00 we waited a few min for BA flight to LHR to vacate the gate, probably BA was delayed too..anyways 10:00-11:00 is rather congested at the B pier ...

concerning Luggage, had to wait (each time)at least half an hour at the belt for the first bag to appear. I suspect luggage goes through security screening first?? if not, then it is a serious case of unproffessional handling by the flightcare. All in all I think it is a brilliant service BRU-BEY and the prices are very low EURO
307 return and taxes inc. with possibility to change reservation..

MEA new luggage policy. 1 piece of check in luggage of KG 25 from BRU to BEY and 30 Kg from BEY to BRU
usually BRU check in do not make a problem of weight up to 30 kg.. however excess luggage is charged by additional piece also up to 30 kg (euro 55 is charged per extra piece) in other words a bag of 15 kg another of 10 kgs will cost pax the additional charge of 55 euro.. checking in hand luggage additional to checked in piece of luggage even if combined weigh less than 30 kg is possible but with the charge of 55 euro..
I think their new luggage system is quite generous, and straight forward..

[BrightCedars]

Thanks for the reply b720.

The plane was actually about spot on time yesterday. I'm particularly glad to read about the 60% LF. When will they allow us to book for next Summer then?!

As for Oct. 30, no surprise, it's the start of a school week holiday in Belgium and if we hadn't chosen for bringing Teta over (yesterday) for the period, we would have been up to grab seats on that day as well!

Thanks for the clarification about the luggage policy!

Still Teta would prefer to fly RB like she used to before, but I'm not sure they're still around on the route. Teta was born in ALP which might excuse some bias

[b720]

I don t know when they open S11 bookings, my guess is starting first days of W10-11 season?? i am checking all the time too.. need to make bookings for march and april.. As for RB, (your Teta might like this) rumor has it that they are going to increase flights to BEY??? and offer even lower prices than ME.. we ll see about that.. I prefer ME, clocking cedar miles, they re quite generous, specially their 2 a year 50% reward redemption sales..really interesting..