Middle East Airlines (MEA)

Is Middle East Airlines safe?

MEA's accident record is better than its surroundings. It has not had a fatal accident since 1964, and it flies only Airbus jets, many of them A321neos. We score it 78. The reasons it does not score higher are outside the cockpit: Beirut airport sits in airspace that EASA rates high risk, the airline has kept flying through wars that grounded its foreign rivals, and in 2026 pilot unions questioned how those decisions were made.

MEA's accident record

The last fatal accident was flight ME444 on 17 April 1964. A Caravelle from Beirut crashed while approaching Dhahran in Saudi Arabia in a sandstorm with half a mile of visibility, killing all 49 on board. Investigators found no mechanical failure and could not determine the cause. A year earlier, in February 1963, an MEA Viscount descending into Ankara collided with a Turkish Air Force C-47; all 14 on the Viscount died, and both aircraft fell on a residential district, killing 87 people on the ground.

The last aircraft MEA wrote off in an accident was a Boeing 720 leased from Ethiopian Airlines, which was damaged beyond repair landing at Beirut in January 1968 with nobody killed. Since then the damage events have been minor: an A321 struck its tail landing at Cairo in November 2001 after ballooning near the ground, and in December 2010 an A330 at Paris Charles de Gaulle pushed its tug across an icy apron and the tug hit the fuselage. France's BEA blamed the ice, the cramped stand and poor communication between the ground crew and the pilots.

Bombs, raids and shelling

Most of the aircraft MEA has lost were destroyed by violence. On 28 December 1968 Israeli commandos, landed by helicopter, raided Beirut airport in retaliation for an attack on an Israeli airliner at Athens two days earlier. They destroyed 14 Lebanese aircraft, among them MEA's three Comets, two Caravelles, a Viscount and a Boeing 707 (ASN). On 1 January 1976 a bomb in the forward hold destroyed flight ME438, a Boeing 720 bound for Dubai, over the Saudi desert, killing all 81 on board. During Lebanon's civil war, and above all in June 1982, more MEA jets were destroyed on the ground at Beirut. As with every airline, we describe attacks but leave them out of the accident score. They show what the airline's home has been like, and we reflect that in the environment factor.

Flying from Beirut in 2026

The 2026 war began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February. EASA then told European airlines not to fly in Lebanese airspace at any level. Its current bulletin, CZIB-2026-06-R2, allows one exception: flights to and from Beirut that approach from the sea and depart over the sea. It also says Lebanon has not shown it can deconflict its airspace, so airlines have few safeguards to rely on. A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon agreed on 16 April 2026 has been extended. EASA still reported violations in August 2026, mainly in the south. Since 2024, Israeli airstrikes have hit near the airport, which sits next to Beirut's southern suburbs.

MEA kept flying. It cancelled and retimed flights from 28 February as neighbouring countries closed their airspace, and it said in June that it continued after receiving international guarantees that the airport would stay outside the conflict. Smaller hazards are older: in November 2022 a stray bullet, probably from celebratory gunfire, pierced the roof of an A320 landing at Beirut. AeroInside reported that such gunfire hits about seven or eight parked aircraft there each year.

Who checks MEA?

The Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority. Lebanon is not on the FAA's safety assessment list because no Lebanese airline flies to the US. No Lebanese airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, and MEA is an IATA member, so it passes 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 every two years. Air France, a codeshare partner, told Reuters it audits all its codeshare partners.

The open question is independence. In June 2026 Reuters reported that MEA, which is majority-owned by Lebanon's central bank, made payments to dozens of regulator employees, including three aviation safety workers. MEA said it did this with the government after the currency collapse cut air traffic controllers' pay by more than 90%, that it did not affect the regulator's independence, and that the auditors and the authority's leaders received nothing. The pilots' federation IFALPA also said crews were asked to fly near airstrikes and were sent for training, which cuts their per-flight pay, after reporting mistakes. MEA calls these claims unfounded. It says only five pilots were sent for extra training flights out of 32,000 flights since early 2025, none of them in 2026. The regulator audited MEA from 18 May to 1 June 2026 and had not published results when we checked. The payments are not in dispute; MEA has explained them, and we take them into account in oversight. The pilots' claims are allegations that MEA denies, so we weigh them lightly. The record of incidents is also thin: we found little besides an A321neo engine problem that caused a diversion to Athens in August 2022.

The fleet

MEA had 23 aircraft in June 2026, all Airbus A320s, A321neos and A330-200s. In November 2025, Airways counted 21: seven A320s, ten A321neos and four A330-200s. Four A330-900s are due to replace the A330-200s from late 2026, along with five A321XLRs, but we found no delivery yet. MEA publishes no average age.

How to fly MEA safely

Before you book, read EASA's Lebanon bulletin and MEA's flight updates. The current bulletin runs to 16 November 2026, and schedules changed with a day's notice in March 2026. Book a fare you can change, and avoid tight onward connections in Beirut, since a closure would leave you without a backup route.

How we scored it

The accident record (91) is the strongest factor: no fatal accident in 62 years. The fleet (80) is all fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary Airbus. Incidents (74) reflect a thin public record and the 2026 pilot complaints. Oversight (72) is lower because of the reported payments to regulator staff. The environment (40) is the weakest factor: EASA rates Lebanese airspace high risk. Overall 78. Royal Jordanian scores 82 and El Al 80.