International flights resumed at Damascus airport for the first time since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, including the first direct flight from Doha in 13 years, to a party atmosphere in the arrivals hall.
One woman propped up a speaker playing a patriotic song, while two others set off green smoke flares as crowds clapped, chanted and sang.
“This is the first time I came through this airport since 2005 and felt proud to be Syrian,” said one passenger, Bashar al-Hussein, originally from the Syrian city of Daraa, who said he had travelled from his current home in Dubai to Doha in order to be on the first direct flight into Damascus.
Qatar, a strong opponent of Assad, had halted flights 13 years previously after the uprising against his rule.
The airport reopening was about more than travel, he said. Arriving at the airport under a new government, where passengers no longer felt under surveillance and staff refused to take bribes, was a new experience. “From the airport to the last door, you’d end up paying about $200,” he said. “Even people who had done nothing wrong had to pay.”
In a reminder of life under Assad’s security state, he added, some passengers on his flight had learned only at passport control that the previous regime had brought charges against them.
Many of the ground staff, airline workers and cabin crew for Syria’s Cham Wings and SyrianAir had returned to work, although at least one mentioned they were yet to be paid.
Security forces in all-black suits or camouflage gear milled around the airport entrance, while others aligned to the new government, led by the Islamist group HTS, staffed immigration points and airport security. A muezzin sang the call to prayer from a balcony, while members of Syria’s civil defence, known as the White Helmets, looked on.
Ali Reda, a SyrianAir pilot, was cheerful after his return to work. The bullet holes in the air traffic control tower had been fixed, he said, as well as a few other repairs needed when the airport was looted during a 12-hour period when it was abandoned by forces loyal to Assad after the dictator fled. Many of those now in control of the airport had never done this kind of work before, he said.
“The security apparatus changed, but the civil aviation staff and ground staff who were working day to day have just gone back to doing their jobs,” he added. Reda had come to work on his day off to help with the first flights from Damascus. He praised the new security measures at the airport as “in line with international standards”.
A passenger who gave her name only as Basma, said she was full of nervous excitement before boarding her first flight to Doha, where she would transit to visit her daughter in Brisbane. She had booked only a few days ago, she said, avoiding a two-hour car journey to Beirut airport, which previously was the only way to access most international airlines.
“It’s so much better to travel through Damascus airport than dealing with the Lebanese border guards. They would always humiliate us when we crossed,” she said. “Syrians in general are happy to have Damascus airport back.”
Staff from SyrianAir and Cham Wings, both which are still under US Treasury sanctions for transporting mercenaries, weapons, and other forms of trafficking under Assad, were optimistic that new flight routes could soon open up.
The airlines currently fly regularly to the Emirates, and Cham Wings staff said they were restarting flights to Kuwait, Baghdad and Erbil, while Turkish and other international airlines were expected to restart direct flights to Damascus.
The US Treasury paused select sanctions with Syrian government institutions earlier this week, saying that would allow the provision of public services and humanitarian assistance. Reda was hopeful that a new government in Syria meant the sanctions on SyrianAir could soon be lifted, allowing it to restore the fleet.
“Being on the sanctions list had destroyed our fleet as we couldn’t get spare parts for the planes – our fleet is down to two planes from the 18 we had before,” he said. Lifting sanctions could also mean resuming direct flights to Europe for the first time in years, he hoped – “I miss my layovers in Europe – in Manchester”.
