Fly Cham

Is Fly Cham safe?

Fly Cham has no crash on record, and neither did Cham Wings, the airline it replaced in June 2025. That is the good news. The rest of the picture is thinner than for most airlines we rate: a fleet of five second-hand A320s, no outside safety audit we could confirm, a regulator that publishes little, and a home base in airspace that EASA tells European airlines to avoid. We score it 64, a little below Syrian Air (67), which has the same airspace problem and is not on the IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary registry either, but has been off the US sanctions list since June 2025.

Fly Cham and Cham Wings: one airline or two?

For safety purposes, one. Cham Wings was a private Syrian airline, registered in 2006 and owned by the businessman Issam Shammout. After the fall of the Assad government, his shares were transferred in 2025 to Rawdat Al Reef, a company owned by an Emirati investor. Fly Cham was announced on 5 June 2025 and flew its first flights, to Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, on 11 June 2025.

The Lebanese investigative outlet Daraj found in Syrian company records that Fly Cham replaced Cham Wings under the same commercial registration, number 14683, and that most staff, including pilots, moved across with the aircraft. A spokesman for Syria's civil aviation authority told Daraj its role was limited to amending the operating licence once the company records changed. Fly Cham told Daraj it is an entirely new company that its owners bought in stages, with all its assets and aircraft. The certificate, crews and fleet carried on, so Cham Wings' record counts here in full.

The airline now flies with its own ICAO code, FYC, and the call sign CHAM SKY. It has no IATA code, so tickets and flight trackers may show flights as FYC701 rather than a two-letter code.

The safety record

The Aviation Safety Network database holds no accident for either name. Investigators in other countries did record two serious incidents in the last 10 years, both under the Cham Wings name:

• Khartoum, August 2017. An A320 from Damascus landed in a thunderstorm and ran off the side of the runway, stopping on soft ground. Nobody was hurt, and Sudan's investigators said the aircraft was not damaged.
• Muscat, July 2024. An A320 lost directional control at about 50 knots near the end of its landing roll and veered left towards the runway edge lights before the crew brought it back to the centre line. The pilot told the tower that the steering caused it. Oman's investigators classed it as a serious incident with minor damage; we found no final report.

In September 2018 a captain had a heart attack on the descent into Moscow, and the first officer landed safely. That shows training working, not a weakness. Two runway control events in 10 years, for an airline of five or so aircraft, are not alarming on their own. But Syria publishes almost nothing about incidents at home, so we do not read the short list as a clean record.

Sanctions and what they mean for the fleet

The US Treasury first put Cham Wings on its sanctions list in December 2016, under its Syria programme, as linked to Syrian Arab Airlines. On 30 June 2025, when Washington ended its Syria sanctions programme and removed Syrian Air, it moved Cham Wings Airlines to its counter-terrorism list instead, tied to its former owner. The entry still names registration 14683. The EU listed Cham Wings in January 2024, and it was still on the EU consolidated list in October 2026. Fly Cham itself is not named on either list.

For passengers, this is mainly about money and parts, not crews. Suppliers in the US and the EU may not deal with a listed company, and a link to a listed registration makes factory parts and support harder to arrange. Daraj traced two A320s that joined Cham Wings in 2024 through companies registered in Kyrgyzstan and Gambia, each stopping in Minsk on the way to Damascus. The A320s Cham Wings registered between 2015 and 2018 were built in 1993 to 1995. Fly Cham does not publish the age of its five current aircraft, and we could not confirm it. An old A320 can be safe with full support; the question is whether a fleet acquired this way gets it.

Flying from Damascus and Aleppo

EASA's bulletin for Syria, revised on 1 October 2026, tells European airlines not to fly at any level in the south-west of the country, which includes Damascus, and not below FL260 elsewhere. The risks it lists are Israeli strikes, missile interceptions and armed groups with rockets and drones. Fly Cham has no choice about its base. In February 2020 a Cham Wings A320 descending into Damascus at night had to climb away hard and divert to Latakia while air defences were firing at incoming missiles. The airline also flies to Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, where the airspace carries its own warnings.

How we scored it

The accident record (85) is the strongest factor: no crash or written-off aircraft since Cham Wings began. Oversight (55) is the score we give an airline from a weak or unrated regulator, not on the EU list, without IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. The fleet (45) is small, second-hand and acquired around sanctions. Serious incidents (55) reflect two runway control events and a thin reporting system. The environment (42) is the same as for Syrian Air. Overall 64.

Before you book

Book through a travel agent or the airline's own offices if your card payment fails, and keep proof of payment: some banks screen payments to airlines linked to sanctions lists, and a refund can then be slow. Check which airport your Dubai flight uses, since Fly Cham sells both Dubai International and Al Maktoum. If you have a choice on the same route, an airline with an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, such as Royal Jordanian via Amman, gives you an outside check that Fly Cham cannot show yet.