01 February 2011

BEIRUT: After a five-hour delay, Middle East Airlines flight 332 finally arrived at the Rafik Hariri International Airport Monday at 6:05 p.m. carrying Lebanese and other nationals fleeing Cairo as Egyptian protesters pressed their week-long campaign to remove President Hosni Mubarak.

“I felt it wasn’t so safe anymore,” said Jean Fawzy, 27, a Lebanese-Egyptian business analyst. “In Cairo, the situation is unpredictable, every day we go to sleep hoping the situation will be better the next day, but it’s not.”

Many passengers said they had to leave Egypt due to the instability. Those who fled the country were concerned about their safety because of the lack of security in their neighborhoods.

Passengers such as Tarek Mohammad Ali, who works for the Cairo branch of a prominent Lebanese insurance firm, said they had to personally defend their house.

“We held knives and had a rotation system among my neighbors since there was no security at all.”

Design engineer Hadi, who preferred not to give his last name, said that the Egyptian capital was unsafe. “The situation is dangerous because of all the criminals that escaped from prison, it’s not stable.”

Passenger Bejjani agreed. “In Cairo, everyone is staying at home with knives and sticks.” He added that he was worried for the safety of his children. “It’s better for the children to leave, even if they don’t know what’s happening; they think we are just on holiday.”

Governments and tour operators from all over the world took steps to pull their nationals out of Egypt on chartered or scheduled flights. Lebanon’s carrier MEA has scheduled flights twice daily between Beirut and Cairo to shuttle all those wishing to return to Beirut. Monday’s flight carried 245 passengers, according to the state-run National News Agency.

Around 200 people were waiting at the airport for the fully booked MEA 332 flight to arrive, holding signs, flowers and gifts for their relatives. Many of them had to buy the tickets for those who were unable to purchase them at the Egyptian airport.

Many Lebanese passengers criticized the MEA office ticketing procedure. One Lebanese businessman, who fled the Cairo riots, said the MEA office did not accept credit cards or Lebanese checks, only cash.

“None of the banks [in Cairo] were open to withdraw money so I asked my relatives to purchase my ticket,” said the businessman, wishing to remain anonymous.

However, a Jordanian passenger said he chose to fly to Lebanon since booking procedure at MEA was easy. “There were many delayed flights and booking to Lebanon was the fastest in comparison to other airlines.”

Many described the situation at the airport in Cairo as chaotic. “I have been at the airport since 4 a.m.,” said passenger Henri Salama, who works in Egypt. Another passenger, Dory Bejjani said passengers had to wait two hours on board the plane waiting for take-off.

Although displaying a calm attitude after flight 332 was significantly delayed, relatives of passengers flying to Beirut were kept updated about the status of the flight by those on board.

Before the landing of the plane in Beirut, several passengers reported to their relatives that a woman’s luggage was being taken off the plane after she didn’t check-in personally. However, Nazih Safieddine, a member of the cabin crew of the plane, denied those claims, attributing the delay to slow airport procedures. “It was crowded, which made things go very slow.”

An MEA official at the airport, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the airline was doing all it could to facilitate ticketing. “Family members [of those in Egypt] flooded the MEA office at the airport buying tickets, pressuring MEA employees to extend their working hours to accommodate the crowd,” he said.

One passenger mentioned that the Lebanese Embassy opened a hotline for expatriates while others did not know about it. “We didn’t know about the hotline … we only saw the ambassador on TV but when we tried to call the embassy, there was no answer,” said Mohammad Ali.

Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry had announced over the weekend a hotline number “0020169860640” as a service to respond to urgent needs by the Lebanese living in Cairo and several other cities where protests have turned violent.

Copyright The Daily Star 2011.