The Middle East’s poster child for no-thrill airlines, Air Arabia, is looking for a third hub between its current two, Casablanca and Sharjah:

“We compared Egypt and Lebanon and technically Beirut could be the best choice for Air Arabia for their third hub,” Karim Hijazi, Managing Director of Air Synapsis, told Khaleej Times.

Air Synapsis is a consultancy firm assisting Air Arabia in their search.

It would be great to have Air Arabia choose Beirut however, we shouldn’t kid ourselves. Let’s not forget that Middle East Airlines controls Hariri International (read monopoly) with its sister companies handling services at the airport. Plus let’s not forget the obvious, as fellow blogger wicked puts it:

For all its attractions – history, nightlife, climate, beaches, scenery, etc, [Beirut] is next door to a rather aggressive neighbour (Israel), and is often a political victim of other more powerful countries (Syria, Iran). The result of that was seen in 2006.

You can’t really operate a hub which is forced to shut down due to road closures and bombed out runways.

Air Arabia: From Beirut to the World?